Background

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines oral Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) of HIV infection as the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs by people who do not have HIV infection to prevent the acquisition of HIV and recommends that people of substantial risk should be offered PrEP. WHO recommends offering PrEP to all population groups at substantial risk of HIV infection. PrEP is considered a key prevention modality and should be an additional prevention choice in a comprehensive package of services that also includes HIV testing, screening and management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), counselling, male and female condoms, lubricants, ARV treatment for partners with HIV infection, voluntary medical male circumcision and harm reduction interventions for people who use drugs.

In the English-speaking Caribbean, the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and Barbados were among the first to develop and implement PrEP programmes. In both cases, this was done in close collaboration with civil society organisations (CSOs) and the private health sector. As a result, both countries now have at least three (3) years of implementation experience and have accrued significant lessons over this period. More recently, Barbados’ experience was peer-reviewed and published in the Pan American Journal of Public Health (PAJPH).

Specific Objectives of the Share Fair:

• To improve participants’ understanding of the role of National AIDS Programmes and CSOs in the design, implementation and monitoring of PrEP programmes.
• To enable participants to understand the factors that facilitate successful design, implementation and monitoring of PrEP programmes as well as the challenges and how these were addressed in The Bahamas and Barbados.
• To identify lessons learned in the design, implementation and monitoring of PrEP programmes in The Bahamas and Barbados and how these can be applied to different countries.
• To understand the critical elements required to document and publish implementation experiences.