After the PrEP win in the Court of Appeal last week, NAT and PrEPster warmly welcome the continued support from Elton John AIDS Foundation, including a new grant of over £100,000 to support policy work, advocacy and community building to help ensure that PrEP is available as soon as possible to all those who need it.

Deborah Gold, Chief Executive of NAT, said: “We are thankful for the support on this issue, one of our main campaigning efforts in recent times. We are so encouraged that EJAF has really understood the need for PrEP. Their support will allow us to continue in our work on this drug which has the potential to be a huge leap forward in halting the HIV epidemic.”

Dr Will Nutland, co-founder of PrEPster.info, said: “This generous grant from EJAF enables PrEPster to do what we do best: to get out into key communities to talk about PrEP and to keep agitating for its availability on the NHS. EJAF's support means that tens of thousands of people will engage with this issue in the months ahead.”

Elton John said on his personal Instagram: “Congratulations to the @nationalaidstrust for their success at The Court of Appeals today. @ejaf was proud to support. NHS England can now legally fund PrEP as a treatment for HIV. PrEP is a vital tool in the fight against AIDS. Providing it to patients in the UK would save lives and treatment costs.”

What is PrEP?

Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) involves HIV negative people taking an antiretroviral drug to avoid getting HIV.

Multiple studies around the world have shown PrEP to be highly effective in reducing the risk of contracting HIV. The results of the PROUD trial in England, released in 2015, prove that PrEP works and that concerns about it not working in a real world setting, were unfounded. Read more about the trial here: http://www.proud.mrc.ac.uk/

Most trials of PrEP and the US CDC Guidelines involve taking PrEP daily.  A study in France, ANRS IPERGAY, has looked at the efficacy of PrEP when taken ‘on demand’, in other words not daily but only before and after sex.  There was also significant preventive benefit shown in this trial.