Will Risk Compensation Accompany Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV?

Thirty years into the HIV epidemic, feasible and effective prevention strategies that can be implemented in populations with high incidences of new infection are still needed. An ideal prevention package should meet the needs of each subgroup in a population and be acceptable, accessible, and effective. Control of HIV will be best accomplished by combining several proven prevention strategies, including condom use, medical male circumcision, HIV antibody testing, antiretroviral therapy (ART) for treatment as prevention (TasP) for those infected with HIV, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for those not infected with HIV [1], and postexposure prophylaxis. Biomedical interventions incorporating ART are most likely to have the greatest impact on the epidemic: they have been shown to be effective in several randomized placebo control trials