Youth and AIDS Projects News
2014 has been a very exciting year of growth and change for YAP!
- We started out the year with a newly redesigned HIV Prevention Program and program staff, Wendi Johnson.
- Our project was taken on by Dr. Meghan Rothenberger, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, and we moved from the Department of Pediatrics to the Department of Medicine. Both of these changes have improved client and staff access to the Delaware Street Infectious Disease Clinic.
- Two first year medical students came on board. Joe Bryant-Huppert took charge of YAP's presence on a variety of social network and hook-up sites and has been providing outreach and referrals to HIV and STI services. Nathan Scheiner put his experience to work and is doing analysis of years of HIV prevention assessment data.
- In the fall YAP collaborated with the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation (MMRF) and Children's Hospitals and Clinics to implement a short-term intervention to help young people, and pregnant women of any age, who are living with HIV take their medications daily.
What is PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis)?
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PrEP means Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, and it’s the use of anti-HIV medication that keeps HIV negative people from becoming infected. PrEP is approved by the FDA and has been shown to be safe and effective. A single pill taken once daily, it is highly effective against HIV when taken every day. The medication interferes with HIV’s ability to copy itself in your body after you’ve been exposed. This prevents it from establishing an infection and making you sick.
Even though PrEP has been around in the U.S. for over a year, not a lot of people know about it. And, even fewer people feel like they know enough about it to be able to make an informed decision about whether or not to use it. For those who do use it, the information they have might be more focused on practical issues, like where to get it, rather than on what PrEP does in the body to prevent HIV infection. View the video to the right to get information about PrEP and see an illustration of how it can work inside the body to prevent HIV infection. |
Video and text credit: whatisprep.org
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