More young Americans are taking antiretroviral meds to protect them from HIV infection than a decade ago. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Eight times more young Americans are taking antiretroviral meds to protect them from HIV infection than a decade ago, a new study says.
About 208 of every 100,000 U.S. young adults were using pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, to prevent becoming infected with HIV in 2023, researchers reported recently in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
That's up from 26 of 100,000 who filled a prescription for PrEP pills in 2016, researchers found in their analysis of data for 18- to 25-year-olds.
"This is a patient population we often neglect in health care, because we don't think about them belonging to pediatric care or adult care, and their stage of cognitive development means they underestimate their STI [sexually transmitted infection] risk in general - yet they're one of the highest risk groups for a new diagnosis of HIV," said lead researcher Dr. Nina Hill, a general internist and pediatrician at the University of Michigan Medical School.
