BC health minister touts success of the new and free PrEP program
Six months after agreeing to cover HIV-prevention drugs for free in British Columbia, the provincial government says nearly 2,000 people have used the program.
In a press conference framed by rainbow crosswalks in Vancouver’s West End, BC Minister of Health Adrian Dix said the program is “by healthcare standards, an extraordinary bargain, and by human standards, an extraordinary success.”
Flanked by West End MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert and the architect of BC’s HIV treatment program Dr Julio Montaner, Dix touted the province’s HIV program as “the largest publicly funded effort of this nature in North America.”
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a daily medication that can reduce the chances of contracting HIV by over 90 percent. The cost of PrEP was a major barrier to access until the BC government announced in December 2017 that it would fully cover the drug.
The vast majority of people who take PrEP in Canada are men who have sex with men.
The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, which runs the provincial PrEP program, estimates that if the program can expand to cover 5,000 people, it will cut new HIV infections in the province by 90 percent.