Taiwan guideline on oral pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention – 2018 update

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for prevention of human immunodeficiency virus infection is proved to be effective and has been implemented worldwide. This article introduces the guideline development and revised recommendations and guidance on PrEP provision in the updated Taiwan PrEP guideline. The Taiwan PrEP guideline writing group searched randomized controlled trials and guidelines published before October 2017 through Medline/PubMed, Cochrane Database, Embase and ClinicalTrials.gov database. Keywords included pre(-)exposure prophylaxis, PrEP, Truvada, tenofovir, HIV, and AIDS. Each selected article was assessed by two authors using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation. External reviewers were invited to independently evaluate the revised manuscript per the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II. Before publication, a public consultation was held to reach consensus on the updated guideline among providers, civil society, and Taiwan Centers for Disease Control. Four systematic reviews and 28 original articles were reviewed by Taiwan PrEP writing group. The second version of the Taiwan PrEP guideline was released in March 2018. We recommended daily PrEP use for the following populations: strong recommendation and high quality of evidence for men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TGW), as well as heterosexual serodiscordant couples; weak recommendation and high quality of evidence for people who inject drugs, while weak recommendation and moderate quality of evidence for at-risk heterosexual men and women. There is high-quality evidence for event-driven PrEP in MSM and likely TGW, and we additionally recognized these key populations could benefit from such dosing regimen. Keywords: Human immunodeficiency virus, Pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP, Taiwan