The Alachua County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center (ACVSRCC) is proud to announce that its innovative HIV Post-Exposure Prophylaxis Program has received the National Association of Counties (NACo) Health Achievement Award and has been selected as one of NACo’s “100 Brilliant Ideas at Work.”
This program provides uninsured survivors of sexual assault access to medication which prevents the contraction of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). These medications are often prohibitively expensive and must be accessed within a very short period of time following exposure in order to be effective.
Before the program, uninsured survivors were often unable to afford the high costs of the medication or access assistance programs in time to start the medication, forcing the majority of them to go without.
ACVSRCC identified this need within the community and collaborated with University of Florida Courtesy Associate Clinical Professor and Pharmacist Joel Zive, and a local Walgreens Pharmacy to develop a program to ensure survivors have access to the life-changing medication. Now, almost all can receive free treatment.
ACVSRCC Director Laura Kalt said, “While the medication has the obvious benefit of preventing survivors from contracting HIV, it also has the invaluable benefit of giving survivors peace of mind by taking away one of the biggest fears they face; which is whether they may have contracted a lifelong sexually transmitted illness during the sexual assault.”
For more information, contact Laura Kalt at 352-264-6762 or lkalt@alachuacounty.us.