Question
Will PEP work if it was in below 0 degrees temperature?
22 June 2022. Related: Access to treatment, All topics, PEP/PEPSE.
Hello! I had sexual intercourse. For fear of HIV, I went to the hospital and got PEP. PEP is a post-exposure prophylaxis which I adopt to prevent HIV after exposure. It is taken for 28 days, but I was afraid to take it for two months. The fear was that I was outside for several hours, with a temperature of minus 2 degrees. On drugs it says to store at a temperature of 25 degrees. The drugs are emtricitabine / tenofovir, darunavir and ritonavir. Could 4 hours at minus 2 degrees C make these drugs effective?
Answer
Hi, how are you?
You have mentioned that you did not take PEP for 2 months. Does this mean you waited 2 months after exposure before starting PEP? PEP needs to be started within 72 hours of the exposure. At 2 months PEP would no longer be effective and you would need to test to confirm your status.
A lot of medication have requirements to be kept below 25 degrees. This is to stop temperature breaking the medication down. PEP being in very cold temperatures for a short while is not going to effect how well it works. It is also likely the medication was not this cold if it was in your pocket or something similar.
Josh.
Hi Huy, to clarify you have stored PEP for 4 days in a trunk with a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius?
Had you kept PEP in the trunk in case you were required to take it? and were you informed by a doctor to start PEP/do you know if this was a high risk exposure? #
There is some risk that the higher temperature can reduce how effective PEP is. The temperature can cause the medication to degrade and become less effective, though some PEP will always be better than no PEP when it is required. Are you able to get a new prescription?
While you recorded the temperature at 40 degrees Celsius, it does not mean this was the temperature for the entire duration e.g., at night/shade, when the trunk can cool. This will limit how much the temperature has impacted PEP. It is still recommended to continue with this treatment if you are unable to access new meds.
More information about PEP can be found here: https://i-base.info/qa/factsheets/pep-faq
Hi, i’ve used arv pep for 6 days. 4 days before i started store the medicine in my motobike trunk, its normal until i found that currently the temperature in trunk is above 40•C. I feel arv so hot. Does it make the PEP fail :(