The United States announced free HIV prevention drugs for 200000 people not covered by health insurance

According to the New York Times, the U.S federal government recently launched a program called "ready, set, Prep "will provide free pre exposure prophylaxis for 200000 HIV high-risk people who do not receive Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Health Management, or any other federal health program , PREP) drugs - truvada and descovy of Gilead (the company announced in May that it would donate about 2.4 million bottles of drugs to the government annually over the next 11 years), and the federal government would pay Gilead about $200 per bottle The applicant must meet three conditions: negative HIV test, prescription certificate issued by doctors, no medical insurance or no such prescription drugs in the purchased medical insurance Meanwhile, the patients who have received help through Gilead's drug assistance program in the past year cannot participate in the application Application method: log in to getyourprep.com for details or call 855-447-8410 for consultation You can also register with the nearest community health center or other health service agencies, or log in to locator.hiv.gov.to find the nearest application location Drug receiving: once the application is approved, the patient will receive the supply of drugs prescribed by the doctor for 30-60 days The drugs will be available in at least 21000 CVs, Walgreens and Rite Aid pharmacies and will advise patients Note: the program will revalidate recipients every two years, and recipients will need to have an HIV test every three months In addition, although the drugs are free of charge, the costs involved in the application process, such as HIV testing, creatinine measurement, multiple STD screening, and follow-up testing, will not be included, and the patients need to pay for them At present, there is still a lack of effective cure for AIDS in the world, which can not be eradicated and needs lifelong treatment For the high-risk population of HIV infection, prep is a very effective prevention method Prep drugs can inhibit the replication of HIV in human body, prevent the virus from progressing to the stage of infection establishment and spreading in human body Studies have shown that daily use of prep drugs can reduce the risk of HIV infection by about 99% and at least 74% by drug injection According to the report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are about 40000 new cases of HIV infection in the United States every year, 38% of which are transmitted by people who do not know their own HIV infection, 43% of which are diagnosed as positive but not treated, 20% of which are infected by people who are treated with virus but whose viral load is not inhibited The U.S health authorities estimate that in order to prevent the spread of HIV, 95% of people living with HIV must be diagnosed, 95% of people who have been diagnosed must be treated with HIV inhibitors, and 50% of people at high risk need to receive prep At present, FDA in the United States has approved two kinds of prep drugs, truvada (approved in July 2012) and descovy (approved in April 2017), but the cost is very high Without medical insurance, the monthly cost is 1600-2000 US dollars, which needs about 20000 US dollars every year Only 10% of Americans can afford such expenses, which leads to the great extent of prep Insufficient use At present, about 1.2 million people in the United States are at risk of HIV infection Of the 1.2 million people who can benefit from prep, data shows that only 18% of the people in 2018 had prep In some cities with high HIV prevalence in the United States, such as San Francisco, the government has set up some programs to pay for the prevention of uninsured people In New York, posters and billboards encouraging homosexuals and other at-risk people to use prep are everywhere, but in more conservative areas, such as the Southern Rural Areas, which is also one of the most affected areas at present There are few activities and initiatives with high awareness of prevention The "ready, set, prep" plan is to cover the whole United States At the same time, the federal government will focus on the District of Columbia, San Juan, Puerto Rico and other regions, which accounted for more than half of the new HIV infections in the United States in 2016-2017 Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said raising awareness and use of prep was crucial, whether it was free or expanded access, but these did not address the fundamental high price of prep James krellenstein, founder of the prepall collaboration advocacy group, points out that although patients without insurance can get free drugs under this program, it does not help patients with the costs of medical examination and laboratory tests they need to continue to get drugs, which can reach thousands of dollars a year Rochelle P Dr walensky's team analyzed the cost of the Obama and trump government's AIDS programs She said, "it's hard to understand why the government spends $200 per bottle in the process of distributing these drugs." truvada doesn't need refrigeration or special treatment It's distributed free in France and Norway In Australia, patients only need to spend 96 per year to purchase the drug US $384 in Germany and 720 in Ireland "