Sachin Jain, MDJune 7, 2015 - BRONX, NY - Biobehavioral prevention approaches, including post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), offer exciting alternatives to the traditional paradigm of HIV prevention. Research conducted by Dr. Sachin Jain seeks to help clinicians determine which individuals at risk for HIV might benefit from PrEP.
Dr. Jain's paper, entitled "The Transition from Post-exposure Prophylaxis to Pre-exposure Prophylaxis: An Emerging Opportunity for Biobehavioral HIV Prevention", was published in the June 2015 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, alongside the latest WHO PEP guidelines. According to Dr. Jain, some patients who present for PEP, the use of antiretroviral drugs to stop HIV from spreading after a single high-risk event, may be at recurrent risk of contracting HIV. Identifying high-risk individuals who might benefit from PrEP, which involves taking a once-daily pill to prevent HIV acquisition, is important to decrease HIV infection among individuals who continually practice high-risk behavior.
"Several studies have examined PEP or PrEP implementation separately, but the data to guide bridging from one form of biobehavioral prevention to another is relatively limited. Further clinical and behavioral research is needed to help clinicians determine which PEP users are at highest risk for HIV acquisition and therefore should be offered PrEP to reduce HIV infections in high-incidence populations," Dr. Jain said.
Dr. Jain is a board-certified infectious diseases & HIV specialist and Medical Director of Prevention Programs at the Montefiore AIDS Center. He completed his medical degree at Rush Medical College, a master of public health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, an infectious diseases fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, and research training at The Fenway Institute. As an internal medicine resident, he co-founded an adult refugee clinic and subsequently co-authored a book chapter on the management of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in refugee patients. His current research focuses on biobehavioral aspects of HIV prevention with an emphasis on PEP and PrEP. He is an active member of the STI subcomittee of the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute's HIV Quality of Care Committee, and has received numerous honors and awards including the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and the O.C. Hubert Fellowship in International Health from the CDC Foundation.