Hi. My doctor prescribed me the following:

Tenofovir 300mg Efavirenz 600mg Lamivudine 150mg

While I was able to find Tenofovir and Lamivudine in my area, Efavirenz was not available. It has been about 70 hours since I may have been exposed to HIV. My doctor has advised me to take Tenofovir in the morning, Efavirenz at bed time and Lamivudine every 12 hours as PEP regime. I got my medication from a drug store just now (night time) and can only take Lamivudine because Efavirenz was unavailable. I wanted to ask that if I have taken only 1 out of the 3 medicines within the 72 hours, will I be protected against HIV? Should I continue the treatment or is it of no use now?

Regards

Hello and thanks for posting.

Clearly taking only one of the PEP medications is less ideal. Some would only use 2 medications for PEP, so this might not be as bad as it seems. Indeed, many don't recommend using efavirenz because of high rates of transmitted resistance and side effects.

Unfortunately, there's no way to know how this delay will affect things. If your exposure was risky enough to justify PEP, I'd continue with the lamivudine and add the others when they're available to you.

Be well, BY