Significant drop in new HIV infections in Scotland after new drug rollout

There has been a significant reduction in HIV infections in gay and bisexual men in Scotland after the rollout of a new drug programme in 2017, a study has found.

Claudia Estcourt. Picture: Peter Devlin

Researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University found that new diagnoses dropped by 20 per cent after the first programme of PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) was introduced in July 2017.

The research, funded by Public Health Scotland and published in the AIDS online journal, also revealed a large cohort of men attending sexual health clinics fell by 43 per cent.

PrEP involves taking anti-HIV pills daily or around the time of sex and is available free from NHS sexual health clinics.

Head of the study Cladia Estcourt, Professor of Sexual Health and HIV at GCU, said the findings show it is possible to achieve important reductions in HIV in men who have sex with men.

“Our findings suggest that PrEP can make a wider contribution, alongside other prevention interventions, in reducing population level risk of HIV for those not on PrEP,” she said.

Researchers found that that among the 3,256 gay and bisexual men who attended Scottish sexual health clinics between 2017 and 2019 and were prescribed PrEP at least once, incidence of HIV infection fell by 75 per cent.

Incidence also fell by 32 per cent among men who had never taken PrEP, suggesting that PrEP users remaining HIV negative have benefits for their sexual partners too.

The next challenge will be to bring these benefits to a wider section of the population, researchers said.

They found PrEP is not reaching other groups who could benefit, including women, heterosexual men, people from some African communities, transgender people and people who inject drugs. Only two per cent of those who have taken PrEP so far are not gay and bisexual men.

Public Health Minister Mairi Gougeon said: “Scotland has made huge progress in detecting and treating HIV and was one of the first countries in the world to have an HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis service, offering free preventative medication to those deemed at highest risk of acquiring HIV.

She added: “These findings show what can be achieved by supportive policy, clinical vision and crucially, true collaborative working across public health, clinical care and community-based organisations.”

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