A red AIDS ribbon lays on a white background with a syringe of blood next to it.

AVOL Kentucky Is Adding Injectable PrEP. One Shot Can Replace Two Months of Pills.

October 16, 2026/in Health/by Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech

AVOL Kentucky has worked to support Kentuckians living with HIV for almost four decades. Now, it’s taking its work to the next level and will soon start to offer injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis, most commonly known as PrEP, the newest and longest-lasting option for HIV prevention.

PrEP is a medication that reduces a person’s chances of contracting HIV and can reduce the risk of getting the virus by about 99 percent when taken as prescribed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

PrEP can be taken in pill form or administered via injection, which provides longer-lasting protection against HIV, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Food and Drug Administration has approved two types of injectable PrEP. One is given every two months, and another is administered once every six months.

Some of the benefits of the injectable medication are that users are less likely to miss a dose due to its intermittent schedule, according to Jon Parker, CEO of AVOL Kentucky.

The method also offers more privacy since there are “no medication bottles with patient information,” he added.

The Lexington-based nonprofit has worked hard so it could expand its programs and services for its patients.

AVOL launched nearly 40 years ago as a program of the Gay and Lesbian Services, now the Pride Center, providing services for people living with HIV.

In its early days, AVOL offered “just basic social services and support, and then over time we added housing, support services and permanent housing for people living with HIV,” said Parker.

By about 1993 to 1994, the organization had started to get more involved in HIV prevention and began working to educate communities about the virus and how it could be prevented. The nonprofit offered HIV prevention supplies, Parker said, and drove people to local health departments to get tested. Parker noted that sometimes people had to wait two weeks to get the results of the test and see if they had contracted the virus.

The organization eventually began offering on-site testing so that people could find out their HIV status in minutes.

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“So, we’ve come a long way,” said Parker.

Right around the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parker said AVOL Kentucky had learned that other similar organizations in North America were beginning to offer PrEP services and wanted to learn how to do the same.

Initially, he said, the organization said offering PrEP services was “out of reach” for them since at the time they did not provide any other medical services apart from bringing people to get tested for HIV.

“We learned that we could do a lot with contracts with pharmacies and with medical staff, so that we didn’t have to perform the services ourselves,” Parker said. “We could contract and kind of pull together, curate a system that could be responsive to the people we see and get them connected to PrEP.”

AVOL Kentucky was, in part, able to provide PrEP services at this time because of the 340B Drug Price Program, a federal program that requires pharmaceutical manufacturers that participate with Medicaid to sell outpatient prescription drugs at discounted prices to some healthcare organizations that serve low-income and uninsured people.

Parker said that AVOL Kentucky receives some revenue through the program, which is then used to offset operational costs, which has helped them build out their sexual-health services without requiring uninsured clients to pay.

In November 2025, the organization decided that it was time to hire a nurse practitioner to help provide more immediate access to PrEP, HIV, and sexually transmitted infection treatment, according to Parker. And that same month, AVOL Kentucky held its first-ever in-person clinic.

At the end of this past August, AVOL Kentucky had 70 clients who received PrEP services through their in-house, on-site clinic. The organization partners with Q Care Plus, a telehealth provider, to provide another 134 Kentuckians with PrEP and PrEP-related services, according to Parker.

“AVOL’s PrEP navigators work across both telehealth and in-house patients, tracking follow-up timing, scheduling appointments, offering interim HIV and STI testing, and providing ongoing access to prevention supplies,” he told Queer Kentucky.

And more people are turning to AVOL Kentucky for HIV care every month. In September, another 25 people joined the list of regular AVOL Kentucky clients, he added.

“There is no one route for everyone,” Parker said when it comes to connecting people to care. “Every person is unique, and you have to find the route that’s appropriate and achievable for them.”

AVOL Kentucky offers walk-in appointments Monday through Friday and provides most of its STI and HIV prevention and treatment services free of charge, according to its website.