For the first time, the WHO is strongly recommending that men who have sex with other men consider antiretroviral medications to help prevent HIV infection. The approach, called pre-exposure prophylaxis, calls for the noninfected to take a preventive pill every day. With such treatment, the United Nations organization predicts HIV incidence among gay men would ultimately fall by as much as 25 percent — and avert close to 1 million infections over the next decade.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, images of gaunt victims flooded publications and television, igniting a global awareness campaign that would eventually help winnow the annual number of new infections by one-third in the past decade. But those victories have also lulled the general population into a sense of complacency, the World Health Organization warned late last week.

“We are seeing exploding epidemics,” said Gottfried Hirnschall, who leads WHO’s HIV department, according to Agence France-Presse.

Those at the most at risk of being infected — transgender people, men who have sex with men, prisoners, sex workers and people who inject drugs — account for nearly half of new HIV infections worldwide. And because of social or legislative discrimination, they’re also often the least likely to access HIV prevention and treatment centers.

“None of these people live in isolation,” Hirnschall said. “Sex workers and their clients have husbands, wives and partners. Some inject drugs. Many have children. Failure to provide services to the people who are at greatest risk of HIV jeopardizes further progress against the global epidemic and threatens the health and well-being of individuals, their families and the broader community.”

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