HIV Prevention

The Fulton County Board of Health offers services that can help reduce the risk of HIV transmission. These services include:

• Free or reduced cost HIV tests
• Free condoms and demonstrations on proper condom use
• Linkage to HIV Care
• Assessment and linkage to PrEP
• Referrals for treatment at the Sexual Health Clinic
• Community education and Screenings
• Mobile Clinic services
• Prevention partnerships

HIV TESTING

By knowing your HIV status, you can make appropriate choices for your own healthcare and reduce risk of transmission for yourself and others. For these reasons, the Fulton County Board of Health has an opt-out HIV testing policy, meaning that everyone who comes to a Fulton County Health Center for a medical service is offered (but not required to have) an HIV test.

PrEP CLINIC

The CDC recommends considering PrEP for persons who are:

• In an ongoing relationship with an HIV-positive partner
• Having multiple partners
• Not in a mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who recently tested HIV-negative, and
• Same-gender loving men who have had anal sex without a condom or been diagnosed with an STD in the past 6 months
• Heterosexual men or women that do not regularly use condoms during sex with partners of unknown HIV status who are at substantial risk of HIV infection (e.g., people who inject drugs or have bisexual male partners)

PrEP can provide a high level of protection against HIV when taken daily, in combination with condom use.  A person taking PrEP should continue to use condoms during all sexual encounters because PrEP does not help to prevent other sexually transmitted infections or pregnancy.

PrEP is prescribed by a health care provider and must be taken daily in order for it to be effective. PrEP does not work after a person stops taking it. If a person does not take Truvada every day, there may not be enough medicine in the bloodstream to block the virus.