Pre-exposure Prophylaxis, the common drug treatment prescribed to prevent transmission of the disease.According to a new article published in The Lancet, doctors first discovered the strain in a 23-year-old gay Frenchman in 2019.
Though he was on PrEP and tested negative in June of that year, he tested positive for HIV that September. Doctors then began investigating the new strain of virus, also identifying it in a 54-year-old man from the same area, the region of Occitania.
The two patients also say they do not know one another.Related: Men taking PrEP show decrease in ‘sexual compulsivity’ and drug useDoctors in France continue to study the new strain and caution the public against panic over the discovery.