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Victory for HIV Campaigners

3 August 2016

By Nicole

There was some good news for HIV campaigners on Tuesday, after they struck victorious in their drug battle with the NHS. Campaigners were delighted when the High Court ruled that the NHS can fund a drug that appears to be able to prevent HIV, despite the fact that health bosses insisted that this was not their responsibility. They argued that it was in fact the duty of councils to provide the pre-exposure prophylaxis, which is becoming more commonly known as PrEP. The main reason for this argument was that the NHS claimed that the councils are responsible for ‘preventative health’.

Members of National Aids Trust were of course upset by this argument and have now successfully managed to challenge it. Despite their victory, however, it appears that NAT still have a number of hurdles to overcome before PrEP is made readily available to the public. Despite the ruling of the High Court, for instance, funding for the preventative drug is not guaranteed.

The NHS has also announced that it will be appealing the ruling of the High Court and makes no promises that PrEP will be deemed effective enough for the NHS to attribute funding. Essentially, if the ruling of the court is upheld despite an NHS appeal, PrEP must then be thoroughly assessed by NHS directors in terms of cost-effectiveness against other new treatments that are also being promoted and require funding. It looks as though the future of PrEP is in uncertain hands.

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