Can I stop PrEP completely?

As with the flexibility for dosing, you might decide that you want to stop PrEP altogether.

Discuss your decision to stop with clinic staff.

You might want to discuss plans to stop PrEP with partner(s) and get tested for HIV and other infections together. Make sure you use a 4th generation HIV test six weeks after the last risk.

How you stop PrEP depends on how you were taking PrEP

• If you were taking daily PrEP then continue for seven days.
• If you were using on-demand dosing (2:1:1) then stopping after your last dose is okay.

If in the future your circumstances change again, it is easy to restart PrEP.

If you stop PrEP and have a risk afterwards, contact your clinic in case post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) might be needed. In the cases when PEP is used, it needs to be started as soon as possible

Last updated: 1 November 2022.