PrEPline, 855-448-7737
The CCC Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Service
11 a.m. – 6 p.m. EST

PrEPline to Provide Clinicians with Advice on New HIV Prevention Tool

We’re excited to announce our brand new service, the CCC Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis consultation telephone service, or PrEPline. This service will provide free, expert advice to clinicians across the country on PrEP, an important new HIV prevention tool. PrEP involves providing antiretroviral drug treatment to HIV uninfected persons to prevent HIV infection.

The PrEPline is staffed with an expert team of HIV clinicians who advise healthcare professionals on the indications for and proper implementation of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The PrEPline rounds out the spectrum of HIV treatment and prevention consultation services for clinicians at the CCC, joining the Warmline for consultation advice on HIV/AIDS management, the PEPline for bloodborne pathogen exposure advise, and the Perinatal HIV Hotline for advice on HIV in pregnancy and infancy. The CCC has continually evolved to address the clinical needs arising from the HIV epidemic, whose next phase includes the quest for an HIV-free generation. The PrEPline will help reduce new HIV infections by making state-of-the-art information and consultation on prevention available to providers across the country.

Dr. Ron Goldschmidt, UCSF Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Director of the CCC, emphasized, “This is a really exciting time, as with the addition of the PrEPline, the CCC will be able to advise clinicians on a full range of prevention options. These include not just offering advice to clinicians on PrEP to prevent transmission to uninfected partners at risk, but providing critically important consultation on treatment of HIV infected persons, both to maintain their health and to decrease transmission by lowering their viral load (“treatment as prevention”). In addition, the CCC advises clinicians on providing post-exposure prophylaxis after sexual and occupational exposures and the use of antiretroviral treatment in pregnancy and perinatally to prevent mother-to-child transmission, which are fundamental interventions in HIV.”

PrEP is a single pill, two-drug combination of the antiretroviral drugs tenofovir and emtricitabine, taken daily to prevent HIV infection in adults at high risk of acquiring HIV. “Many of the clinicians prescribing PrEP will have had limited experience prescribing antiretroviral drugs,” Dr. Goldschmidt said. “We will guide these clinicians as they work through decisions about who might benefit from PrEP and for whom it’s not advisable to prescribe PrEP, how to provide follow-up to ensure safe medication use, and protocols for averting and identifying new transmissions. Key to PrEP will be continually evaluating patients’ ability to adhere to a daily PrEP regimen, as missed doses can negate the benefits of PrEP.”

The Clinician Consultation Center is part of the US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETCs) Program. The new PrEPline was made possible through supplemental funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to this HRSA program that provides education and training to clinicians nationally. Consultation services are provided by UCSF physicians, nurses, and clinical pharmacists. The CCC has provided nearly 400,000 consultations to clinicians on preventing and managing HIV/AIDS since its inception in 1993.