Missouri has the chance to lead in the fight for a new AIDS-free generation
As we grapple with the current global health emergency, we should pause to remember the destructive force of the AIDS epidemic, and to celebrate the scientific advancements that have the potential to eradicate HIV during our lifetime. On this World AIDS Day 2020, let me explain some promising new medical breakthroughs and how Missouri can play a prominent role in ending this disease.
Forty years ago, our nation began battling a mysterious new disease that was destroying the immune systems of its victims, leading to what was an all but certain death. The medical community was at a loss for how to treat or control the unknown disease, and it would take another four years before the virus was finally discovered. By then, human immunodeficiency virus or HIV had infiltrated the globe.
Today, society has the potential for its first AIDS-free generation in four decades. While scientists remain hard at work to develop a vaccine, they have created drugs to suppress the virus in an HIV-positive individual to the point that it exists only in a dormant state. An HIV-positive individual with access to the right medication can suppress the virus, making it undetectable in the body. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms: Undetectable equals untransmittable.
While this is a huge step toward eradicating HIV, it requires access to once-daily medication to be effective, and it requires that people know if they are infected in the first place. An estimated 15% of all HIV-positive individuals do not know they are carrying the virus. This remains a significant public health challenge.
To circumvent this issue, scientists have developed medication to be taken by high-risk individuals that can prevent them from being infected by the virus. This medication, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, has been proven safe and effective, and it is undoubtedly part of the solution.
That leaves one subset of individuals to protect: those who are not taking PrEP because they lack access to the medication, or because they are not considered high-risk. For these circumstances, a new medication — post-exposure prophylaxis or PEP — has been developed. PEP is designed to be taken by an individual within 72 hours of potential HIV exposure.
When HIV enters the body, the countdown to infection begins. It takes 72 hours for the virus to become embedded, permanently infecting an individual. Herein lies the problem: Currently in Missouri, PEP must be prescribed by a physician. Too often, by the time someone is able to see a physician, fill the prescription and take the medication, that 72-hour window has closed.
We know this medication is safe, and we know the few precautions that must be observed before taking it. Yet too many barriers remain in place for PEP to reach its full public health potential.
That is why I will prefile bipartisan legislation in the Missouri Senate allowing pharmacists to distribute the right amount of PEP medication to prevent a new infection, buying time for individuals to see their physicians to discuss a long-term prevention strategy. This policy, enacted by only one other state, would put Missouri at the forefront of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
This commonsense legislation, passed unanimously out of a House committee last year, would positively impact Missourians’ lives, improve public health and save taxpayer money. I hope that you, too, will support it.
Missouri state Rep. Greg Razer was elected in November to represent District 7 in the Missouri Senate.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Missouri has the chance to lead in the fight for a new AIDS-free generation."