The Health Department says it will now fix the mess in waiting lists for the HIV preventative pill.

BarcelonaA completely effective strategy for preventing HIV infection has been in place for five years, but it is still not available to everyone in Catalonia. People seeking treatment, a pill called HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), must wait more than two years, and cases of infection have already been detected on the long waiting lists. As reported by the ARA, At least twenty people waiting have been infected due to access difficulties And specialized entities warn that this figure will continue to grow if more resources are not allocated. Furthermore, the department admits that it does not know how many people are on the waiting list. Now, however, it assures that it is working on a formal and regulated registration system that "will allow for accurate information on the number of people interested in receiving treatment" and, thus, sort out the current mess.

Since the Catalan government extended the budget this year, the Health Department rules out increasing the allocation it allocates to treatment in 2025, but for next year it will include the "appropriate modifications" to the accounts to ensure that PrEP reaches people on the waiting list in accordance with the registry it is developing. The current allocation is €9.2 million. The department believes that if it knows the number of people waiting to receive treatment, it will be able to "plan more appropriately." A response that has the entities clutching their heads: they complain that the department has not yet done this work and does not know how many people in Catalonia want the pill.

One of the department's arguments is that the same person interested in the treatment may be registered at more than one center and may not notify the others once they start taking the pill at one. The BCN Checkpoint, the reference center for infection control in Catalonia, questions this argument because, they claim, they are the only ones with a waiting list and the other dispensing centers lack registered people. At the BCN Checkpoint alone, which will move to larger premises to expand coverage and reach more people, there are more than 4,000 people waiting to access PrEP.

The Health Department insists on the use of condoms.

While the increase in investment is still pending—the budget is extended from 2023, even with Pere Aragonès as president—Salut urges people on the waiting list to "use other prevention methods," such as condoms. "It's like saying that whoever gets infected while on the waiting list is to blame for themselves," the BCN Checkpoint charges.

An important aspect to consider among the benefits of the pill is the economic factor, since the cost of PrEP is five times lower than that of treating a person with HIV. For example, in 2024 the department allocated 1,100 euros per person for preventive treatment and around 5,500 euros for each HIV-positive person. Thus, since the authorities decided to incorporate PrEP as a protection mechanism for at-risk groups, ways must be found to guarantee access to it.