A man taking the HIV preventative drug PrEP has tested positive for HIV.

The case, which happened in Melbourne, Australia, has perplexed medical experts.

PrEP is designed to reduce the chances of contracting HIV.

More than 100,000 people around the world use PrEP to prevent contracting HIV.

This is only the fourth recorded time a person has tested HIV positive while on the drugs.

Experts say the man could have come into contact with a person living with HIV who had a detectable viral load, along with a strain of the virus that is resistant to PrEP medication.

Alternatively, it is possible that the man had not been adhering to his PrEP programme, causing him to become positive.

“Currently there are over 100,000 individuals who are taking PrEP globally as a way to protect themselves against HIV acquisition,” VAC CEO, Simon Ruth, said.

“To date there have been no confirmed cases in Australia of a person on PrEP being infected with a drug-resistant HIV.

“There have been no reported occurrences of widespread PrEP failure here or around the world where in many locations PrEP is approved and subsidised.

“The vast majority of people taking PrEP in this country and around the world continue to be protected by this powerful HIV prevention tool.”

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Two cases were recorded last year in New York and Toronto where people are said to have contracted HIV from PrEP resistant strains.

A third incident in Amsterdam is yet to conclude.

NHS Wales has agreed to trial fund the drug, along with NHS Scotland who announced plans earlier this year.

NHS England is also due to trial the drug following Scotland’s lead.

In a positive step, scientists recently cured living animals of HIV for the first time.

Researchers have completely eliminated the virus from the tissue of a group of mice.

The tissue had been transplanted with human cells that were infected with HIV.

The virus usually attacks and kills cells with the disease, leaving it open to other infections.

But now medics at Lewis Katz School of Medicine, part of Temple University, have found a way to ‘cut away’ the virus from cells in the body for the very first time.

Co-senior study investigator Kamel Khalili said: “Our eventual goal is a clinical trial in human patients.”