Protect yourself and the community with PEP and PrEP! What’s the difference? Learn more about these strategies here.
The museum of discovery and science is proud to bring you wise bodies an innovative hiv aids awareness and prevention program presented by aids healthcare foundation i’m russell walker i’m the senior director of operations at ahf for the southern bureau i am a current user of prep and that means i am still luckily hiv negative if you have sex with someone and then
You find out within the next 72 hours that they’re hiv-positive and you didn’t know previously that you can like go to the hospital and they’ll try to give you something that will make sure that you don’t like permanently contract is that true if you had sex with a person the night before and they happened to tell you hey i’m actually hiv positive totally forgot
To tell you we were just having so much fun what you can do is go to the hospital they have something called pep and you can also come to ahf depending on the hours but we have pet for free and essentially what it is it’s like a plan b but for hiv so you can use it to protect yourself from hiv it will block the hiv virus from coming into your body but you have
To use it within 72 hours it has to be within 72 hours so think of it like this pep which is post exposure prophylaxis is like the plan b and that includes tiffa k and truvada for 28 days and prep is like the birth control and you just take one tablet every day before you get exposed prep is pre-exposure prophylaxis so it is a medication that you could take
Every single day to prevent getting hiv so you can take the medicine every day and then whether or not you’re safe you’re protected from getting hiv okay and pep is post exposure prophylaxis so oops you were using a condom and it broke um you have 72 hours to go get a prescription filled and get started on taking a medication for a whole month to prevent maybe
That hiv if you were exposed from actually infecting you so an another reason why people would use pep is for example if you were raped then you have that chance to prevent hiv pep is a good way to do that because you have preferably within 12 hours you get there to get medicines and the ers should be able to give you that but up to 72 hours to get started for
That month of protection in my opinion anyone who’s having sex would be a perfect candidate for prep and that means pre-exposure prophylaxis if you are engaging in high-risk sexual activity with someone who has hiv or you don’t know their status you can take this medication once a day to prevent you from getting hiv let’s say you don’t have insurance there’s
A lot of resources out there that can allow you to get it at no cost and again it’s very important to always use a condom because prep only prevents you from contracting hiv it does not prevent you from getting sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea chlamydia or syphilis the prep one you would just take that any way if you felt like the need to or would
You mostly just do that if you were partnered with someone who had it most people are using prep just because they’re socially dating people and they may get intimate with people and it might be more than one person or just one person but they don’t know their status you know if you’re going to college that happens and so i’ve given prep to a lot of teenagers
Who are going off to college and are going to start experimenting sexually and they never know what situations they can find themselves in and if they think they’re high risk for potentially finding themselves in an hiv situation prep is the way to go so we have two options here for prep we have discove and we have truvada both of these medications are actually
Indicated for men it takes about seven days for either one of these options to reach the level to prevent hiv so now when it comes to women this is the only option called truvada this is the only fda approved option so it takes about 20 days for this specific one to reach enough concentration in the vaginal tissue to prevent hiv as long as you’re taking it every
Day consistently you will be able to prevent hiv 99 chance effectiveness as someone who takes prep um i began taking prep about four and a half years ago and during one of the studies and trials for discovery it was important to know firsthand you know the benefits and also potential side effects of being on prep personally experience no side effects from it
But i know that there are some for some people of nausea diarrhea you know general side effects by the signs of things um personally i’ve been very lucky and not had any i couldn’t advocate for something as a tool if i wasn’t personally doing it myself so that was basically why i took prep i continued to take prep and it has been very simple our administration
Has an ending the epidemic initiative by 2030 going on so what does that mean everybody has to get tested getting tested is so important to avoid spread in the community and let’s say you get tested and you’re negative and you’re still engaging in these risky behaviors i advise that you get on prep your doctor can prescribe it for you and you can prevent hiv
That way i’m a hiv doctor that’s what i’ve done my entire career i’ve taken care of over a thousand young people adolescents youth young adults and babies and one of the things you want to make sure is that you don’t have to come into my office that you don’t have to come in to see me or another doctor that takes care of people with hiv there are plenty of
Things that you could do so you never have to see us you can use a condom get tested so you know your status you can access post exposure prophylaxis if you run into an emergency where you think you might have been exposed to hiv remember in the first 72 hours you can do prep which is pre-exposure prophylaxis and take a pill a day to prevent hiv so you want to
Do everything possible to avoid having to come in and talk to me because the last thing i want to do is tell you you’re hiv positive we have resources whether it’s prep whether it’s the incredible advocacy and legislation that ahf is performing or whether it’s the discussions that you can have in your classroom be a part of the team that is helping to eradicate hiv you
Transcribed from video
Wise Bodies: Protect with PEP and PrEP By Museum of Discovery \u0026 Science