October 7, 2024

Dr. John Kinuthia and Julia Dettinger receive IAS award for high-impact paper on PrEP delivery during pregnancy

Congratulations to Dr. John Kinuthia (Affiliate Associate Professor, UW Global Health; Head of Research and Programs, Kenyatta National Hospital) and Julia Dettinger (former Research Scientist with Global WACh) for receiving the Journal of the International AIDS Society’s (JIAS) HIV Prevention Impact Award for the co-authored article, “Risk-based versus universal PrEP delivery during pregnancy: a cluster randomized trial in Western Kenya from 2018 to 2019.”

The award was announced at HIVR4P, the 5th HIV Research for Prevention Conference, held from October 6-10, 2024 in Lima, Peru and virtually.

The paper summarized key findings from the PrEP Implementation for Mothers in Antenatal Care (PrIMA) study (Co-PI: Baeten, John-Stewart), a cluster randomized trial to assess two models for PrEP delivery among pregnant women seeking routine MCH care at 20 public clinics in Kenya between January 2018 and July 2019.

In the Universal arm, all participants received PrEP counselling and self-selected whether to initiate PrEP. In the Targeted arm, participants underwent an HIV risk assessment, including an objective risk-scoring tool and an offer of HIV self-tests for at-home partner testing; those determined to be at high risk received a PrEP offer. Participants were followed through 9 months postpartum. Primary outcomes included incident HIV and appropriate PrEP use (defined as PrEP uptake among those at high risk and no PrEP uptake for those not at risk). Outcomes were compared using intention-to-treat analyses, adjusting for baseline HIV risk and marital status. The findings suggest that universal PrEP counselling is optimal for integrating PrEP in MCH systems.