The Truth About Truvada

The HIV virus continues to be a powerful and persistent health crisis in the United States, with statistics show that possibly one in every 40 thousand persons in the country will receive an HIV diagnosis this year alone. The Center for Disease Control estimates over 1 million Americans are currently HIV positive. HIV is still a deadly disease, but combination therapy is proving to be effective in whittling down the number of fatalities.

Prevention, of course, is the only guaranteed method of avoiding an HIV positive diagnosis. The drug Truvada has proven to be extremely effective in the suppression of the infection’s initial invasion of the body.

Truvada is a designer drug specifically formulated to prevent HIV infection. The scientific term for this kind of medication is pre-exposure prophylactic. At the moment, Truvada is the only FDA licensed drug that can be prescribed for this kind of protection in the United States. Medical authorities, of course, are firm in stating that the only guaranteed way to completely prevent an HIV exposure is with so-called ‘protective sex,’ meaning a condom must be used for all episodes of sexual contact.

But the use of Truvada is surprisingly small in the United States at this time. Sales records indicate that only around 90 thousand Americans are currently using the drug, despite the fact that over ninety percent of all HIV cases could be prevented by its daily usage. So it remains a worrying puzzle to national health authorities as to why Truvada is not in more demand for the general public.

But the truth of the matter is that the current pricing structure for Truvada is preventing a large majority of the American public from having it prescribed for them.

Currently, Truvada is available for monthly dosage are around two-thousand dollars, although there are some pharmaceutical discounts that can be found to lower that price tag a few hundred dollars per month. One way around this crippling expense is to buy the medication from a reputable online drug retailer who is set up overseas. Their manufacturing costs are much less than here in the United States, and they are willing to pass those savings on to their online customers.

Insurance companies have been very slow to add Truvada to their list of approved drugs covered under most policies. But the good news is that the FDA recently approved some generic brands that include the same basic formula as Truvada, which can lower treatment prices considerably. Unfortunately, the health insurance industry has been extremely slow to pay for such generics. And the way the American drug market works, if the major health resist adding a drug to their approval list that drug, generic or not, will still remain out of the price range of many middle class people struggling with major health issues.

 

To prevent sexually active people from contracting HIV it is imperative that they be fully aware of Truvada’s potential to inhibit initial HIV infection. It is also imperative that the price of such a drug be reasonable. It remains to be seen if government and health insurance companies can come up with a plan to make this happen.