Since June 1, all doctors can prescribe PrEP, an antiretroviral treatment for HIV-negative people to avoid the risk of infection with the AIDS virus.
Just 40 after the virus was first mentioned in a scientific article, this breakthrough is expected to further reduce new infections.
All doctors, and in particular general practitioners, can since June 1 directly initiate preventive treatment, PrEP, intended for HIV-negative people to avoid the risk of infection with the AIDS virus. Coincidentally, this decision by the Ministry of Health comes just 40 years after the first scientific article mentioning the AIDS virus, published on June 5, 1981. It is largely thanks to the democratization of this antiretroviral therapy that the dead due to AIDS have fallen by 43% since 2010, although there is no cure or vaccine.
Taken in tablets, this treatment based on antiretrovirals helps prevent HIV contamination during sex without a condom.
Before that date, the first prescription of this treatment, which was 99% effective, could only be made by doctors in hospital departments who take care of HIV, or in a screening and diagnostic center.
The attending physician could only renew the prescription.
30,000 people in France are already using PrEP
"The idea is to impregnate the body with these chemicals, which means that if you encounter HIV, the treatment is already present in the body to prevent the virus from setting in", explains Marina Karmochkine of the immuno-service. infectious disease of the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris.
For her, facilitating access to this treatment is a great step forward.
"That all health actors can take hold of it, it's really important. It makes it possible to make a form of preventive medicine and to address sexual health."
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In France, 30,000 people use PrEP today and this proportion should increase because of the easier access. But experts insist on the importance of combination prevention: taking PrEP should not eliminate the need for condoms, which remain the only effective protection against other sexually transmitted diseases. Globally, nearly 32 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the epidemic began in the early 1980s.