{"id":7243,"date":"2019-02-05T06:51:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T10:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plataformalac.org\/?p=7243"},"modified":"2019-02-05T17:41:53","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T21:41:53","slug":"the-road-towards-prep-in-costa-rica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/2019\/02\/the-road-towards-prep-in-costa-rica\/","title":{"rendered":"The road towards PrEP in Costa Rica"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a\ntalk organized by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and civil\nsociety, Costa Rica started discussions on PrEP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By: Dennis\nCastillo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: corresponsales\nclave<\/a> (Key Correspondents)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week ago, Spain’s Cultural Center and Igual Cu\u00eddate<\/em> organized a talk during which the documentary Sin miedo al VIH<\/em> (No fear of HIV) was\nscreened and participants discussed the use of PrEP in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These activities are held in response to the needs for actions to\nprovide training on human rights, as well as information and strategies to\nempower people with HIV and key populations. Although the country makes efforts\nto decrease the number of new HIV infections, in recent years said rate has\nrisen from 0.4 to 0.6 per 1,000 inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In this context and given the\nexistence of new prevention technology, such as PrEP, one would expect Costa\nRica\u2019s Ministry of Health to include the combination of tenofovir and\nemtricitabine in its list of medicines. However, that is not the case, and more\ncoordination among civil society organizations is needed to address this issue,\nexpand the knowledge the population has on the subject and push for its\ninclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PrEP in Costa Rica?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts who have been conducting\nresearch on the inclusion of this technology in Costa Rica participated in the\ntalk. One of them pointed out a weakness when trying to operationalize demands\nfor its inclusion in this Central American country. \u201cGuidelines of the FDA and\nsome European countries consider PrEP as a means which help prevent the\ndisease. In Costa Rica, the Ministry of Health has not done that because the\nlaboratory did not have commercial interest in providing the studies supporting\nits inclusion\u201d, says Roger Cartin<\/strong>,\none of the speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was a first step to approach PrEP in the country through the public\nhealth system. According to the speakers, the combination of medicines is being\nsold at authorized pharmacies of the private sector, and the cost is around 250\ndollars per flask, which not all vulnerable populations can afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the event, young participants expressed their interest in getting\nto know more about the subject, empowering themselves with their rights and\naccessing that prevention method. Many asked specifically about the use of\nPrEP, requirements for taking the medicine and its mechanisms of action,\nwhich is indicative of the importance of continuing using dissemination and\ninformation strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the importance of continuing with social interventions to strengthen\nthe rights of people of various sexual orientations to achieve elimination of stigma\nand discrimination in Costa Rica was also revealed. That goal can be attained\nby talking about the subject and new prevention methods which will help\novercome HIV-related biases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization recommends countries to provide all\nmeasures of the combination prevention strategy. That includes providing condoms,\nlubricants and HIV tests in areas frequently visited by key and vulnerable\npopulations, as well as expanding access to pre-exposure\nantiretroviral prophylaxis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyhow, nothing would be possible without an empowered civil society\nwhich knows its rights and demands its government to deploy all evidence-based\nprevention strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All articles can be shared and published provided all data regarding the source are cited.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a talk organized by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and civil society, Costa Rica started discussions on PrEP. By: Dennis Castillo Source: corresponsales clave (Key Correspondents) A week ago, Spain’s Cultural Center and Igual Cu\u00eddate organized a talk during which the documentary Sin miedo al VIH (No fear of HIV) was screened and participants […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66,74],"tags":[],"anho":[],"autor":[],"publicado_por":[],"palabras_clave":[],"class_list":["post-7243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-response-aids-tb-malaria","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7243"},{"taxonomy":"anho","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anho?post=7243"},{"taxonomy":"autor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/autor?post=7243"},{"taxonomy":"publicado_por","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publicado_por?post=7243"},{"taxonomy":"palabras_clave","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plataformalac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/palabras_clave?post=7243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}