Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is accused of discrimination for requiring HIV-infected individuals to pay high out of pocket costs for their medications, according to a complaint lodged with the Health and Human Services Department.
A new modeling study by the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute concludes that a $6 billion federal investment over a decade for drugs that prevent HIV infections, such as through the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) program (UCLA Health), could reduce new HIV infections by 75 percent. The institute is lobbying Congress for additional HIV funding, arguing that taxpayers could eradicate the virus in the United States, achieving an estimated medical cost savings of $2.27 billion annually.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday noted the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has saved more than 25 million lives since its launch in 2003. Blinken, who spoke at the Business Council for International Understanding’s World AIDS Day event at the Hay-Adams Hotel in D.C., said the more than $100 billion the U.S. has earmarked for PEPFAR over the last two decades has funded 70,000 new community health clinics, 3,000 new laboratories and the hiring of 340,000 health care workers.
“Missing from our nation’s effort to end HIV is a national PrEP program that covers the cost of the medications, associated labs, and prescriber time for those who lack health insurance along with the necessary provider and community outreach to increase PrEP uptake, particularly among the communities most impacted by HIV,” HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute executive director Carl Schmid said in a statement Monday (Nov. 28). “We call on Congress to take immediate steps to correct this by including new funding to begin a national PrEP program at the CDC in the fiscal year 2023 spending bill currently being considered.”
Pharmacy Times® interviewed Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, on how the long-acting injectable PrEP compares to oral PrEP in terms of efficacy and safety and whether pharmacists are able to administer this long acting injectable for patients.