Happy World AIDS Day!
24.9% of Lesotho’s
population currently is infected with HIV. Think about that for a moment.
It is absolutely mind
blowing to look around yourself at a meeting, party, football match, or funeral
and think that statistically one-quarter of the people you are looking at have
HIV.
Somehow, as I consider this, it does not shock me then that
in one of my four years in Lesotho I had
a possible HIV exposure.
Within minutes of my potential exposure to HIV, I was
desperately trying to control the runaway adrenaline in my body as it caused my
legs to twitch while rationally reminding myself through Google and memories
from Peace Corps trainings that I still had ways to protect myself from the
virus.
As I researched PEP-Post Exposure Prophylaxis, I struggled
to contain my panic. Everything I read warned that PEP is difficult and has
many side effects. There were many reports noting permanent liver or kidney
damage. There were even more highlighting that patients were unable to complete
PEP due to side effects and therefore would still end up HIV positive. Reading
these reports, I was terrified and furious
at the series of events that put me in this position.
PEP is actually one of two options available to prevent HIV
infection. PEP typically consists of taking Antiretroviral (ART) medications
for 28-30 days, depending on the type of medications taken, after a single incident of possible exposure. The simplest explanation of how it works is
that the ART medications prevent HIV replication in the body until all cells
that may have been exposed die off.
The alternate option is for people at consistently high-risk exposure to HIV.
This is called PrEP or Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and consists of ART taken
throughout the period of high-risk (e.g. having a long-term sexual partner who
is HIV-positive). Scientifically, it works the same way that PEP does, however,
the person must continue to take it correctly until a month after exposure risk
ends.
