Zimbabwe to start giving out HIV prevention pills soon

In an interview, the Ministry of Health and Child Care’s AIDS and TB Unit advocacy and communications officer, Mr Brian Nachipo said that Zimbabwe will soon start testing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication in selected districts in the country after adopting World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on HIV treatment and prevention. 

PrEP is meant for people who do not have HIV, but are at substantial risk of getting it such as sex workers. Such people take a pill everyday to prevent infection. The pill (brand name Truvada) contains two medicines (tenofovir and emtricitabine) that are used in combination with other medicines to treat HIV.

Dr Nyaradzo Mmgodi, the programme director of the University of Zimbabwe-University Of California San Francisco Collaborative Research Programme, says PrEP is like the anti-malaria tablets that people take before visiting mosquito-infested areas like Binga and Kariba to protect themselves from malaria.