Even gay publications have called the rise in other STIs PrEP’s “nasty downside”, while researchers have lamented a “failure” in safer sex messaging.
What if this common narrative isn’t quite right?
If you remember the 1980s, you will likely summon up the image of the Grim Reaper or a black tombstone when asked to think about AIDS. Those images, embedded in our collective memory by two iconic Australian and British public health campaigns of that decade, reveal how AIDS has been both a medical and a cultural epidemic since it was first clinically observed in the US in 1981.
A study recently published in The Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes indicates that transgender (trans) women in Brazil had low levels of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) awareness. This was combined with significant proportions being willing to use PrEP as a prevention tool and being eligible for PrEP.