Latinos Salud’s DiversiSAFE Addresses HIV/AIDS Treatment and Prevention

published on November 20, 2017 by Jose Cassola, in South Florida Gay News

Hundreds of the local LGBT community's movers and shakers attended Latinos Salud's annual networking, social and community event, DiversiSAFE, Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Miami Tower.

Attendees enjoyed food, wine, specialty drinks, music by local DJ AJ Reddy and performances by local drag queen TP Lords -- all while learning important information related to HIV/AIDS.

"As a community, we're in trouble. We live in an epicenter of HIV," said Stephen Fallon, executive director of Latinos Salud. "In fact, there are 3,000 counties in the United States. Miami-Dade ranks No. 1 in new HIV cases; neighboring Broward ranks No. 2. We also have more tools than ever before to keep you safe. I grew up on the condom code. But we have other tools, too."

One of those tools is PrEP, or Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, medication approved by the FDA that keeps HIV-negative people from becoming infected. Fallon said there are now 39 studies that followed 11,900 people through multiple years of using PrEP. The studies showed that PrEP protects 90 percent of the time when used correctly.

"It's just like condoms. It doesn't work if you leave a condom in the drawer and don't put it on. It doesn't work if you have a prescription for PrEP but you don't take it," Fallon said. "But if you use condoms, they work. If you use PrEP, it works."

Juan Oves, co-chair for Latinos Salud who emceed the event, said the objective of DiversiSAFE was to "empower the community to continue the conversation" about HIV/AIDS.

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