Nearly 50 people in Portugal are already taking the "AIDS pill"

These are two recent steps on the road to fighting AIDS and producing the desired effect. There are already 47 people taking the drug to prevent contagion and 93 patients receiving antiretrovirals in the street pharmacies they've chosen.

The infamous data, which will be presented this Thursday, show that more access has been given to prophylaxis (PrEP) to the AIDS virus. Preventive treatment of people at increased risk of HIV infection is provided to 47 people in several hospitals nationwide and 74 are waiting for authorization.

The requests were issued by the hospitals of the Lisbon center, Vila Nova de Gaia / Espinho, Porto and East Lisbon (Egas Moniz Hospital). Infarmed also reveals that the project began in February to decentralize hospitals for dispensing treatments for the patient.

HIV has been respected. Community pharmacies provide antiretroviral drugs to 93 patients and another 125 are waiting for a "green light" from the pharmacy they have chosen. "The goal is to increase the convenience of patients, to facilitate access and to increase therapeutic compliance," says Infarmed officials

L & rsquo; Initiative brings together 208 pharmacies, five distributors, 13 pharmaceutical companies and nine institutional partners. Infarmed adds that "the training is extended to more professionals, with the expansion of the number of pharmacies in this planned project."

The current ART project, whose interventional study and pilot began in 2016 , started in February this year, after approval by the Ethics Committee of the Lisbon Central Hospital Center and includes an observational study.On 29 June, 784 people had been contacted, of whom 385 had signed a Informed consent to participate in the study, coordinated by the head of infectious diseases at Curry Cabral Hospital, Fernando Maltez.

In practice, the goal is to analyze two groups of patients: those who choose to take medication at the hospital and those who choose the community pharmacy For example, 146 patients continue to seek drugs from Curry Cabral