Dear Participants,

 

The current COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on daily living, individual and public health and NHS capacity to cope with this emergency. Everyone is being called upon to play their part in order to avert as many deaths as possible. This includes following government advice and undertaking social distancing. This means you should stay at home, undertaking only essential travel and keeping at least 2 metres from everybody who is not part of your household.

​

Sex and intimate contact is a risk for COVID-19 transmission. While severe illness and deaths are occurring mostly in the elderly and vulnerable, younger people are also being affected.

​

Given the crisis, clinical capacity for research-based activity is already being severely limited across the NHS. The PrEP Impact trial will remain open but in almost all services recruitment is likely to be paused. Follow up visits will be decided based on local circumstances and we have made some changes to the trial to try and make this easier for services and for participants to continue to access PrEP where possible and if still required.

​

If you require current information about coronavirus please go to https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

​

Below is some additional information regarding the PrEP Impact Trial and taking the study medication.

​

At this time we would ask that you do not try to attend for your PrEP Impact visit earlier than expected.

​

Our participating clinics will need to make numerous accommodations for the COVID-19 pandemic; this will take time and we do not want to burden them further.

​

Section 1: Participation in the PrEP Impact Trial

​

It is still safe for you to take PrEP as instructed and continue on the trial. There have been some changes to the trial protocol which are listed below.

​

These changes have been made to ensure participant safety both as trial participants and to reduce travel related risks surrounding COVID-19, including making sure the trial clinics can continue to deliver the trial under reduced capacity.

We ask that all our participants keep informed of the ongoing COVID-19 risk. Please refer to the PHE guidance on how to protect yourself and others:   https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus