People at very high risk of contracting HIV who took part in a groundbreaking NHS study into the drug that prevents the virus have been told that they will no longer be given the medication, BuzzFeed News can reveal.

The decision to stop supplying the drug to the participants now that the study is over comes despite indications from NHS England earlier this year that this would not happen. Britain’s leading HIV charity has warned that it is a statistical certainty that some of these participants will now become HIV-positive.

The 545 gay and bisexual men who volunteered for the PROUD study were selected on the basis that they were particularly vulnerable to infection and were willing to take one pill – called Truvada – a day, in an HIV prevention regime called PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis).

The PROUD study, conducted over two years, became a world-leading investigation, with its conclusions used internationally as evidence of the medical efficacy of providing the drug to those most likely to contract HIV. It found that PrEP reduces the risk of transmission by 86%, and that those who take the drug are no more likely to contract other sexually transmitted infections.

Some of those selected for the study are in relationships with HIV-positive people, some had volunteered after at least one unprotected sexual encounter within a three-month period, and others had been identified by clinicians as very likely to acquire the virus.



But NHS England confirmed in May that it would not be rolling out PrEP to all those most liable to become infected, claiming that funding the drug was the responsibility of local authorities. Instead it said it would fund a small £2 million project offering the drug to a few hundred people.

The Terence Higgins Trust, Britain’s largest HIV charity, told BuzzFeed News that there was “no clarity” on whether any of the PROUD participants would be included in that group.

Dr Michael Brady, the trust's medical director, said: “In reality, whatever they [NHS England] do it’s not going to happen for a few months, so we’re looking at months where everyone is having to get it privately or get generics.”

He added: “The delays, and the real life impact of people on the PROUD study, just further highlights what feels like procrastination and a lack of clarity in [NHS England’s] statements.”

Brady said doctors were aware what the refusal to commit to further treatment meant. The PROUD study showed that nearly 10% of those in the at-risk group will contract HIV within the first year without the drug. So, he said, the decision not to provide the study participants with continued medication would lead many to become infected, as well as highlight the wider risk of withholding the drug from everyone vulnerable to infection.

“Not providing access to PrEP for all those MSM [men who have sex with men] who are like the PROUD participants is potentially allowing 10% to become infected,” he said. “We know that there are many more MSM at a similar risk who are not in the PROUD study.”

Now the study participants are on their last few pills – with their doctors telling them they will not receive any more in the near future.

One, Jamsheed Master, a 37-year-old musician from Brighton, told BuzzFeed News that he discovered at his recent appointment at the sexual health clinic that there would be no further prescriptions.

“I went on Monday kind of expecting that they’d have made some sort of provision to provide it and the answer was no, sorry, thank you very much, that’s the end of the study.”