In the basic two years, the municipality will allocate 250,000 euros for PrEP treatments, the medication you can take preventively to prevent an HIV infection. This means that another 200 Amsterdammers could use PrEP treatment. At the moment, 1600 people are still on the waiting list: “It’s very frustrating.”

Richard Keldoulis has been using PrEP since 2016. “Then I had to get it from Thailand,” he says. “It has been available in the Netherlands since 2019. You can get it through the GP of the GGD. General practitioner Some do not want to prescribe it because of moral problems or because it is not part of their basic package. Then you have to go to the GGD, but there is a huge waiting list,” he says.

In recent years, HIV infections have continued to decrease in the city. “Last year we made 44 diagnoses and in 2020 there were 52,” says GGD doctor Kenneth Yak. “That decrease is partly due to the use of PrEP. But we are full. We have reached maximum capacity. That means that we cannot accept new participants. This has led to a waiting list that has now risen to 1600.”

200 new spots

The municipality wants no new HIV infections to occur in 2026. That is why 250,000 euros will be used in the first two years, which means that another 200 Amsterdammers can follow a PrEP treatment. “We are very grateful and happy of course, but it is a drop on the next record,” says Keldoulis. “Much more needs to be made available. I know someone who contracted an HIV infection this summer while on the waiting list.”

Keldoulis: “We’ve been working for 40 years to end the AIDS epidemic. And now we have a drug that can take care of it, and we’re not doing that because we’re not making PrEP widely available. That’s frustrating.” he says.