The Price of Prevention: Spain and Italy's Approach to National PrEP

Authors

Jon Burkart, Pomona CollegeFollow

Abstract

While recent advancements in antiretroviral therapy (ART) continue to improve the outlook for people living with HIV (PLHIV), new infections remain a concern for health authorities around the world. A clinically proven intervention holds the potential to dramatically reduce new infections: Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a once-daily pill for high-risk populations, including men who have sex with men (MSM), that substantially reduces HIV infection risk. However—much like rates of new infection—public provision of PrEP varies considerably among OECD countries. This case study thus seeks to answer the question: What might explain the disparate timeline of adopting public reimbursement for PrEP in Spain and Italy? Through the cases of Italy and Spain, I find that a combination of institutions, culture, interest group organization, framing, and leadership help us to understand why Spain approved PrEP reimbursement considerably sooner than Italy.

DOI

10.5642/urceu.NQPN8414

Rights Information

2024 Jon T. Burkart

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Burkart, Jon (2024) "The Price of Prevention: Spain and Italy's Approach to National PrEP," Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union: Vol. 2024, Article 5. DOI: 10.5642/urceu.NQPN8414
Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2024/iss1/5