London, Ont., advocate works to get the word out about little-known HIV prevention pill

There's a daily pill out there that can prevent the spread of HIV by over 90 per cent, but a lot of people who need it don't know about it.

A London, Ont. advocate has been working to change that.

Part of Greg Owens's job at Regional HIV/AIDS Connection is to get the word out about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as part of a team of educators, not just to the people who could benefit from it, but to doctors who could prescribe it.

"We try to do educational opportunities with local family doctors [and] with the local sexual health clinics through the public health units to talk about PrEP, to talk about how could you prescribe this," said Owens.  

"We've seen an increase in physicians ... interest in prescribing PrEP directly out of their family practice, which obviously from a convenience standpoint for community members, we want to encourage the most. If you have a family doctor, you can get all your health stuff attended to in one location, that's obviously very convenient." 

In the London region, 333 people living with HIV have accessed services from Regional HIV/AIDS Connection in the last year. The clinic has also helped about 35 people looking to get a prescription for the PrEP regime.     

Regional HIV/AIDS Connection has been able to offer information about PrEP to Western University's dentistry and medical programs. The percentage of doctors in the city who can or are willing to prescribe the treatment, or even know what it is, is "quite low," Owens said. 

Bringing up questions about PrEP can be tricky because it involves conversations about sex, Owens said, and some may not be comfortable doing that, particularly if they're having queer sex or aren't out.  

To make PrEP and other preventative strategies more widely available, a special clinic was started in 2017 with Specialty Rx pharmacy on Oxford Street. People can get the drug prescribed there without having to go through their family doctor. 

Devon Thievin has just started trying to access PrEP, but doesn't have a family doctor and has relied on word on mouth to get himself informed. He learned about the regimen through his older brother, who is gay.

"[Friends] kind of steered me in the direction of where to go," Thievin said. "They kind of sent me a bunch of links, told me about their experience getting it, stuff like that.

"I've been given links, but I haven't really spoken to anyone yet."