Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico - Last week, in the presence of national and international personalities, Solidaridad Ed Thomas AC (SETAC) presented the campaign "Let's talk about PrEP," which aims to educate the general population and, above all, to promote awareness of the medical treatment that helps to prevent the transmission of HIV among the most vulnerable groups.

PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a medical treatment that helps to prevent the acquisition of HIV, focused on the populations most exposed to the virus, as part of a combined prevention strategy, along with the use of condoms, medical monitoring, and periodic tests.

Prof. Francisco Javier Arjona, Director of SETAC, welcomed personalities from the health sector, local government, educational centers, and civil society. Among them were the ImPrEP teams from Brazil and Mexico City, led by Dr. Brenda Hoagland and Dr. Galileo Vargas respectively. (The "ImPrEP" project is an initiative funded by UNITAID of the United Nations.)

Prof. Arjona spoke of the challenges that arise when implementing a program of this type in a city like Puerto Vallarta because of the high mobility (both national and foreign people) the city has. Currently, the protocol has 83 PrEP users, and it's planned to reach approximately 300 users by the end of this year, of which 80% are Mexican users.

In this same line, Mr. Víctor Galicia, CEO of CHECCOS (the Humanitarian Committee of Shared Effort Against AIDS), gave a summary of the project in Guadalajara, and also spoke of the importance of correctly choosing the critical populations for the different protocols.

Also, Dr. Luis Alberto Ruiz, who is the technical secretary of COESIDA (the Council for the Prevention of HIV - AIDS) in Jalisco, stressed the state's support for civil associations and combined prevention programs, highlighting community collaboration and pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis, along with plans to prevent other types of sexually transmitted diseases.

The session ended with Dr. Hamid Vega, Co-Principal Investigator of the ImPrEP project, giving a summary of the ImPrEP project in Brazil, Peru, and Mexico. There are approximately 3,800 people currently participating in the program in Latin America's thirty-one implementation sites, six of which are in Mexico.

At the actual launch of the campaign, Prof. Arjona showed videos, posters, and graphics to promote PrEP to the general public. These materials can be accessed through the hablemosdeprep.com webpage.

Located at Aldanaca 178 4A & 4B, in the Colonia Versalles of neighborhood of Puerto Vallarta, SETAC is a non-profit community and wellness center whose mission is to reduce HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in the greater Banderas Bay region through education, detection and prevention. Free counseling, testing, treatments and referrals for HIV and other sexual transmitted illness are just some of the free services SETAC provides to the entire population, without prejudice or discrimination. For more information, follow SETAC on Facebook, visit the website, call (322) 224-1974 or email contacto(at)setac.com.mx.

Click HERE to learn more about Centro Comunitario SETAC.