More than two dozen sexual health clinics in England are now turning away gay men who are seeking to take HIV-preventing drugs, PinkNews has found.

Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) drug Truvada, which can drastically reduce people’s chances of being infected with HIV, was made available for free on the NHS last year as part of a large-scale three-year trial.

As part of the trial, 10,000 places were made available via participating sexual health clinics across England – with most of the places reserved for men who have sex with men. However, PinkNews has found that many of the major clinics involved in the trial have already been forced to close recruitment to gay and bisexual men, after their capacity for trial places was quickly filled due to high demand.

Clinics that fill their quota are left with no option other than to tell them to go elsewhere. 26 locations involved in the trial have closed recruitment so far, according to data made public by the IMPACT trial.

Some of the most popular sexual health clinics with the LGBT community, such as London’s Dean Street, filled their trial quota in just weeks.

Dr Alan McOwan of Dean Street told PinkNews: “We had a capped allocation that was used up very quickly… it’s very frustrating to have to turn people at high risk away.” Read more via Pink News