51% of HIV Infections Result of Condom Failure

[+ Lance_Navarro]

The news that came out yesterday about the man on PrEP becoming HIV positive has once again ignited a debate about its efficiency. Those who are against or fearful of PrEP are using this to justify their feelings. The estimate of the number of people taking PrEP appears to be around 50,000, meaning that 1 seroconversion means it still is effective 99.98% of the time. Many PrEP opponents are using this news to justify their stance that we need to focus on condom use and not PrEP.

 

The link here is from a study in 2014 that showed about half of new HIV infections occurred while using condoms. It also shows that of those infections, 97% of the time the partner that was already positive was NOT on ART (anti-retroviral treatment).

 

I understand that combining condoms, PrEP and TasP (treatment as prevention) is the ultimate combo, however the reality is that part of the appeal of being on PrEP is the ability the go condom free with either some or all partners.

 

If you feel like condoms alone are an acceptable form of protection, but not PrEP alone, please read this study.

 

http://betablog.org/51-new-hiv-infections-condom-failure-anal-sex-study-finds/