A big part of Washington D.C.'s plan to get its HIV rate down is to get more uninfected people on PrEP, a two-medicine combination pill that's also sold under the brand name Truvada.
When taken daily by people who are at high risk for contracting HIV via sex or shared needles with someone who is infected, this pre-exposure prophylaxis can cut the risk of HIV infection by 92 percent, studies show.
PrEP has been around for years now, but only a small portion of those at high risk for HIV infection use it, partly because many still don't know it exists.
To cut new infections in half by 2020, D.C. health officials estimate it will need to more than quadruple the number of people in the District who are on PrEP. The department of health and community groups are pulling out all the stops to raise awareness.
"Thinking about sex? Then think about PrEP," one public health commercial says, over video clips of a woman sensually licking an ice cream cone, or a man stroking a golf club. You get the gist. There are also social media pushes, and an ad campaign called "PrEP for Her" targeting African American women, who, along with gay and bisexual African American men, are at high risk of infection in D.C. Read more via NPR