Effectiveness of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in Peru

In this week's PLOS Medicine, Anna Borquez from Imperial College London and an international group of authors developed a mathematical model representing the HIV epidemic among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transwomen in Lima, Peru as a test-case for the effectiveness of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

The model was used to investigate the population-level impact, cost, and cost-effectiveness of PrEP under a range of different scenarios.

The authors found that strategic PrEP intervention could be a cost-effective addition to existing HIV prevention strategies for MSM populations.

However, despite being cost-effective, a substantial expenditure would be required to generate significant reductions in incidence of HIV.