HIV Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) is an effective HIV prevention tool recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for all potential exposures. However, access to and uptake of PEP remains low, resulting in missed opportunities to prevent new HIV transmissions. While HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has gained significant attention over the past decade, HIV PEP, despite being available much longer as a prevention tool than HIV PrEP, has received less interest. This is particularly concerning, as PEP offers important additional prevention benefits as part of combination prevention, especially with the expanded access to PrEP.
Rapid assessment of access to HIV Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) in EU/EEA countries
Despite its proven efficacy, access to PEP remains inconsistent across the EU/EEA. In 2024, AIDS Action Europe conducted a rapid assessment to explore the barriers and state of PEP access across Europe.
This rapid assessment of HIV PEP is based on a survey conducted by AIDS Action Europe in 2024, among its member organisations, partners, and community members on the availability, accessibility, affordability and acceptability of HIV PEP in the EU/EEA Member States. The report incorporates country-specific examples and anonymized survey responses to provide a more detailed assessment of access to HIV PEP as one of the tools of combination HIV prevention, highlighting real-world challenges faced by users and its main findings serve as the basis for the AAE HIV PEP policy paper.
You can access the full report here.
AAE Policy Paper on HIV PEP
This policy paper examines the key challenges and gaps in accessing HIV PEP and presents a set of recommendations aimed at improving its accessibility, availability, affordability, and acceptability.
WHO Guidelines for HIV post-exposure prophylaxis
Additionally, you can find here the WHO Guidelines for HIV post-exposure prophylaxis. WHO’s updated PEP guidelines prioritize broader access to PEP, including community-based delivery and task sharing to mitigate barriers such as stigma and to ensure timely access post exposure.
