Government plans to introduce the HIV transmission countermeasure Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a move welcomed by rights advocate Joel Simpson, who described it as an important first step and expressed hope that the drug would eventually be available countrywide.
The announcement was made by Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence at an HIV Clinical Management and Implementation of PrEP through a Public-Private Partnership Workshop on Wednesday. The Department of Public Information (DPI) reported that the ministry is planning to introduce PrEP to combat HIV transmission while another countermeasure will see the government establishing a public-private partnership with doctors within the private sector to whom patients will be referred for treatment.
Exactly how the two measures will be implemented was not made clear by the DPI report.