PrEP prevents HIV and nothing else

**PrEP — pre-exposure prophylaxis — is medicine, as pills or shots, that
greatly reduces your chance of getting HIV** from sex or injection drug use.

It is for adults and adolescents without HIV who may be exposed through
sex or injection drug use.

The limit, stated plainly

**PrEP reduces the chance of getting HIV. It does not prevent other sexually
transmitted infections, and it does not prevent pregnancy.**

Condoms help prevent certain other STIs, and pregnancy. The two are not
alternatives to each other; they cover different things, and someone on PrEP
who has stopped using condoms has changed their risk of gonorrhoea, syphilis
and chlamydia without changing it for HIV.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding

**PrEP can help prevent HIV while trying to conceive, during pregnancy, and
while breastfeeding** — which also protects the baby from HIV exposure.

This is worth knowing because the instinct with any medicine in pregnancy is
to stop taking it. Here, stopping is what creates the exposure it was
preventing, for two people rather than one.

Cost

**Most insurance plans and state Medicaid programmes cover some form of
PrEP.** Assuming it is unaffordable without checking is the most common reason
people do not start.

Talk to your health care provider about whether PrEP is right for you.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.