The HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute submitted the following comments to the Women’s Preventive Services Institute recommending that HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) be included for all women at risk of HIV as part of sexually transmitted infection counseling and as part of the Well-Woman Preventive visits, as they update HRSA’s recommended preventive services for women.
The undersigned 67 public health, HIV, hepatitis, and STD community-based organizations, along with providers, community health centers, and advocacy organizations are writing to urge you to change a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) policy that can immediately help increase access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for the prevention of HIV. We ask the CDC to reverse its current prohibition and allow recipients of all HIV prevention funds to pay for PrEP ancillary services such as laboratory services for PrEP screening and monitoring.
As our country continues to respond and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has impacted HIV and hepatitis services, we know we have the science to end two other infectious diseases that have been impacting our country for decades: HIV and hepatitis C. While there still is no cure or vaccine for HIV, we have preventive tools along with treatments that suppress the virus, and together can bring the number of new infections down to a point that we can end HIV.
We urge Congress to capitalize on the expertise of the community health centers as part of the EHE initiative so that we can expand PrEP and PrEP-related services by increasing funding from the current $102 million to $152 million, as proposed by President Biden’s FY2022 budget.
On behalf of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, we respectfully submit this testimony in support of increased funding for domestic HIV and hepatitis programs in the FY 2022 Labor, HHS spending bill.