Thousands of people are set to trial a daily HIV-prevention pill as part of a strategy to stop transmissions of the disease in New South Wales by 2020.
On World Aids Day, NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner labelled the clinical trial a game changer, which is being expanded from 300 participants to around 3,700.
The trial involves giving people at risk of HIV infection a daily dose of the antiretroviral medication known as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis.
The pill has been proven to be highly effective at preventing the infection taking hold.
The trial, led by the University of New South Wales’ Kirby Institute, involves high-risk, mostly gay and bisexual men across a statewide network of public sexual health clinics and selected GP practices.
Researcher Professor Andrew Grulich said it was the first trial of its kind to combine rapid roll-out with population-level monitoring.
“It’s incredibly exciting. I’ve been around research in this field for 20 years and this is really our best chance of really hitting this epidemic on the head,” Professor Grulich said.
“We are now more than 30 years into the HIV epidemic – we do have treatments which make HIV a chronic manageable disease, but nevertheless treatment is lifelong and if we really want to prevent HIV then we know that taken daily PrEP is close to 100 per cent effective.”
Ms Skinner said the treatment had been recommended by the World Health Organisation and other international and expert bodies.
“It’s really just one of a number of tools we’ve had in our kit bag to try and achieve this virtual elimination of HIV transmission by 2020,” she said.
“New South Wales is the only major Australian state achieving declines in newly diagnosed HIV infections,” Ms Skinner said.
“Internationally, only San Francisco is achieving a higher rate of decline in new infection.”
Recruitment is expected to commence by Mardi Gras 2016.