Those are both great points.
The first issue is why the four to six months? Essentially, the medications are reducing the burden of HIV in an individual from a lot to a tiny, tiny amount. Essentially the four to six months basically ensures that someone is continuing to take their medication and is continuing to suppress their virus. If someone is not adhering to their medications or if, for whatever reason—maybe they're on the wrong medication and there's resistant virus and there's a detectable viral load—that person is at risk of transmitting. If people get tested every six-ish months, and it's consistently suppressed, we know that the risk is basically zero. That's issue number one.
The second issue is about HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP. We know that people who are HIV-negative but at risk for HIV acquisition for whatever reason—so they're HIV-negative individuals at risk for HIV acquisition—if they take a tablet that's an antiretroviral medication—and most people will take one of these tablets per day—they can almost completely reduce their probability of acquiring the infection. In medicine, just like in life, nothing is 0.0% or 100%, but with PrEP, if people are taking their PrEP, they will essentially eliminate their risk of getting HIV. That would also essentially eliminate the risk of transmitting HIV to someone else, because they can't get HIV.
Those are two excellent points to bring up in this committee. Thank you for bringing those up.