Amsterdam invests in PrEP treatment against HIV, but waiting lists remain: “Drop on the hot plate”

Over the next two years, the municipality will allocate 250,000 euros for PrEP treatments, the medicines that can be taken preventively to prevent HIV infection. This means that another 200 Amsterdammers are eligible for PrEP treatment. At the moment, 1,600 people are still on the waiting list: “It’s very frustrating.”

Richard Keldoulis has been using PrEP since 2016. “Then I had to get it from Thailand,” he says. “It’s been available in the Netherlands since 2019. You can get it via the general practitioner or the GGD. Some general practitioners don’t want to prescribe it because of moral objections or because it’s not part of their basic package. So you have to go to the GGD, but c ‘It’s a huge waiting list,’ he says.

In recent years, HIV infections have continued to decline in the city. “Last year we made 44 diagnoses and in 2020 there were 52,” says GGD physician Kenneth Yak. “That decrease is partly due to PrEP use. But we are fully booked. We have reached maximum capacity. This means we cannot accept new participants. This has led to a waiting list that has now grown to 1600.”

200 new seats

The municipality wants zero new HIV infections by 2026. That is why 250,000 euros will be invested in the next two years, which means that another 200 inhabitants of Amsterdam will be able to receive PrEP treatment. “We are very grateful and happy of course, but it’s a drop in the ocean,” says Keldoulis. “A lot more needs to be made available. I know someone who contracted HIV this summer while on a waiting list.”

Keldoulis: “We’ve been working for 40 years to end the AIDS epidemic. And now we have a drug that can do that, and we’re not doing it because we’re not making PrEP widely available. It’s frustrating,” she said. he says.