JAMA Medical News PrEP Prevents HIV—If Patients Can Get It
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Mar 13, 2026 Kate Schweitzer, Associate Managing Editor at JAMA Medical News and reporter on public health, talks PrEP access and policy. She outlines PrEP’s evolving options, from injectables to on-demand. She highlights access barriers: stigma, insurance and Medicaid hurdles, and high-cost injectables. She also covers funding cuts, modeling risks to progress, and local innovations like pharmacist prescribing and telehealth.
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PrEP's Dramatic Efficacy And Expanding Options
- PrEP is transformative and can reduce HIV risk by more than 99% when taken as prescribed.
- Options now include daily pills, long-acting injectables every two or six months, on-demand dosing, and trials for a once-a-day pill, expanding patient choice.
Higher PrEP Coverage Correlates With Fewer Infections
- PrEP uptake has grown to nearly 600,000 users by 2024 and areas with higher coverage show the largest declines in new HIV infections.
- States with the highest uptake saw new infections drop by nearly 40%, linking coverage to outcomes.
Access Gaps Are Driving Continued HIV Transmission
- Access gaps explain persistent new HIV infections despite effective tools, with only about one-third of 1.2 million eligible people having prescriptions.
- Black and Latino communities and women, especially Black women in the South, have especially low PrEP uptake due to stigma and access barriers.