Uptake and persistent use of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among key populations: Results from Ukraine’s scaled national PrEP program

Background: Ukraine has implemented ambitious HIV-prevention programs since 1999 and began offering pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in 2017. Little is known about PrEP uptake and persistence in this setting. Setting: We analyzed data from 40 facilities providing PrEP in 11 oblasts (regions) of Ukraine between October 2020-February 2022. Methods: We estimated the time between PrEP visits and conducted Kaplan-Meier analyses to estimate retention on PrEP stratified by sex, age, and key populations (KPs): men who have sex with men (MSM), people who inject drugs (PWID), sex workers (SW), discordant couples and others vulnerable to HIV acquisition (DC/Other). We used Cox regression to estimate risk of PrEP discontinuation by KP group and sex, adjusting for age. Results: Overall, 2,033 clients initiated PrEP across regions; the majority (51%) were DC/Other, 22% were MSM, 22% were PWID, and 5% were SW. The overall three-month persistence was 52.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 49.9-54.8%) and was lowest among MSM (46.7%; 95% CI: 41.9-52.2%) and SW (25.9%; 95% CI: 18.2-36.9%) (p<0.05 for differences by KP group). After adjusting for age, PrEP discontinuation was not statistically significantly different across groups, although female PWID tended to have the lowest discontinuation risk (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 0.59; 95% CI: 0.31-1.11 while male SW tended to have the highest risk (aHR 1.87, 95% CI: 0.57-6.11) compared with females in the DC/Other group). Conclusion: Three-month PrEP persistence was low across KP groups, especially in SW. Further research examining the barriers and enablers of persistence by KPs is needed.