Two different efforts for the PrEP Pilipinas program of LoveYourself were given a spotlight on the ongoing International AIDS Society (IAS) 2023 Conference on HIV Science being held in Brisbane, Australia.
LoveYourself’s chief of medicine, Dr. Jan Dio Miguel “Doc. Migs” Dela Cruz showcased his study entitled “Evidence of peer-led demedicalized delivery of same-day PrEP in various community centers in the Philippines” in a poster presentation at one of the conference exhibitions.
Doc. Migs shared with exhibition attendees that in demedicalizing PrEP, enrolled clients in LoveYourself increased from a moving average of 568 since Q3 2021 to 1,256 in Q2 2022.
Based on the outcome of his study, peers can provide oral PrEP at scale to high-priority groups, which also empowers nonmedical providers through a medically-guided approach. Doc. Migs stressed, “Oral PrEP can be offered in a demedicalized approach, led by the community, for the community.”
Another effort that caught the attention of the international buddy was the rolling out of an all-virtual PrEP service that is demedicalized. With the title “E-PrEPPY: Enabling an all-virtual, community-led, and demedicalized PrEP service for men who have sex with men (MSM) in the Philippines,” LoveYourself head of Programs and Innovations Danvic Rosadiño shared, “We established an all-virtual PrEP service that is demedicalized, with members of the community developing and running the service.”
“This service is done entirely remotely. We deliver a package containing PrEP and HIV self-testing kits to their delivery address of choice,” Danvic explained. Furthermore, trained community peers and doctors are guiding our clients via telemedicine. The diagram below shows how LoveYourself rolled out this program:
LoveYourself enrolled 230 new PrEP clients through this program between August 2022 and April 2023. One hundred clients (43.48%) have completed their first monthly visit, with 92 clients reporting taking PrEP daily.
Finally, Danvic stressed, “If we roll out PrEP equally and unstoppably, together with U=U, we can end the HIV epidemic in our lifetime.”
In 2017, LoveYourself introduced PrEP through a demonstration project, which brought this effective biomedical intervention for HIV prevention to the country. Currently, there are more than 10,000 PrEP users in the Philippines, following the boosted efforts of the organization and its advocacy partners and funders.
Enroll to LoveYourself’s PrEP Pilipinas program now!
