Where to get HIV PEP in Dubai, day or night

First: is it within 72 hours?

HIV post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is a 28-day course of HIV medicines that can stop an infection taking hold after a possible exposure. It only works if it starts within 72 hours, and it works best when it starts within hours. Everything else in this guide matters less than that clock.

If you are reading this after a condom broke, after unprotected sex with someone whose HIV status you do not know, after a sexual assault or after a needle-stick injury, the most useful thing you can do is speak to a physician now rather than tomorrow morning.

Your three options in Dubai

There are three realistic routes to PEP in Dubai. Each one can work. The right choice depends on the time of day, how far you are from a hospital, how private you need the visit to be and how quickly you can be seen.

1. A hospital emergency department

Large hospitals in Dubai run 24-hour emergency departments, and an emergency physician can assess an HIV exposure. This is the right choice if you are also injured, if you were assaulted and need other care, or if you cannot reach a physician any other way.

What to expect:

• You will be triaged alongside every other emergency, so waiting times vary, especially at night and at weekends.
• You will need to show your Emirates ID or passport.
• Whether PEP for a sexual exposure is supplied on the spot can vary between hospitals. It is worth calling ahead to ask whether the emergency department can start PEP tonight, rather than being referred to a clinic the next day.
• Many basic health insurance plans in Dubai exclude HIV care, so you may be asked to pay for the medication yourself.

2. A private clinic

Some private clinics in Dubai have infectious-disease or sexual-health physicians who can assess you and prescribe PEP. This is a good option during working hours, especially if the clinic can dispense the first doses or send the prescription to a pharmacy that stocks the medicines.

What to check before you go:

• Is a physician who can prescribe PEP available today, not just a general practitioner who will refer you on?
• Can they give you the first dose during the visit?
• Will they manage your 28 days and your follow-up tests, or is it a one-off prescription?

3. A licensed home or hotel visit

Dubai has a large home-healthcare sector licensed by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA). A licensed home-healthcare service can send a physician to your home, hotel or office. For PEP this has two advantages: you do not wait in a public waiting room, and it works at 3 a.m. when clinics are closed.

This is how Hollis works. A physician calls you back within 15 minutes, assesses the exposure by phone or video, and if PEP is right for you, comes to you, usually within about 2 hours, takes baseline tests and gives the first dose on the spot.

The options side by side

What happens at a PEP assessment

Whichever route you choose, the physician will ask a few private questions. The answers decide whether PEP is recommended:

1. What happened. The type of sex or injury matters, because the risk differs a lot between exposures.
2. When it happened. PEP is not recommended after 72 hours.
3. What is known about the other person. If they are known to have HIV, whether they are on treatment and have an undetectable viral load matters a great deal. If their status is unknown, the physician weighs the circumstances.
4. Your health. Kidney and liver problems, pregnancy and other medicines can change which PEP medicines are chosen.

If PEP is recommended, you will have baseline blood tests, usually for HIV, hepatitis B and C, syphilis, kidney and liver function, and where relevant chlamydia, gonorrhoea and a pregnancy test, and you will start a combination of three HIV medicines taken every day for 28 days.

The 28 days after

Starting PEP is only half the job. To give it the best chance of working you need to:

• Take every dose, at the same time each day, for the full 28 days.
• Have follow-up HIV tests, usually at 4 to 6 weeks and again at 12 weeks after the exposure, using a lab antigen/antibody test and an HIV RNA test. PEP can delay when an infection shows up, so your physician sets the exact dates.
• Get help early with side effects rather than stopping. Most people have mild side effects or none.

Read more in our guides to PEP side effects and HIV testing after an exposure.

What it costs

PEP costs in Dubai have two parts: the medical care (assessment, visits, tests and follow-up) and the medication itself, which is prescription-only. Clinics rarely publish PEP prices, which makes planning hard. We publish ours: see how much PEP costs in Dubai for a full breakdown.

Privacy

Seeking PEP is a normal medical consultation. Your records are handled under UAE health-data law, and staff involved in your care must keep them confidential. UAE law does require some results to be reported to the health authority, including a positive HIV test, so testing at an ordinary licensed clinic, lab or home-healthcare service in Dubai is confidential, but not anonymous. UAE law allows anonymous testing only at centres designated by the health authorities. Our article on whether HIV tests in Dubai are confidential explains exactly what is and is not reported.