Despite remarkable advances in HIV prevention, more than 100,000 new diagnoses continue to be reported annually in the World Health Organization European Region. Between December 2024 and August 2025, two Italian centres specialising in HIV/sexually transmitted infection care offered long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in 265 individuals. CAB-LA was recently recommended in European guidelines (2024), but no real-world European data outside clinical trials have been reported to date. The programme specifically prioritised people with vulnerabilities that could compromise the effectiveness of oral PrEP, including suboptimal adherence, relevant comorbidities, and structural or behavioural barriers.

A rapid communication, published in Eurosurveillance, presented the characteristics of enrolled participants, their reasons for accessing CAB-LA, and early outcomes related to adherence, tolerability, safety and treatment discontinuations.

Access the full rapid communication here /open access/.

 

Source : Eurosurveillance