Recently, in addition to previous preventive methods, such as consistent condom use and male circumcision, early treatment (treatment as prevention, TasP) has been shown to decrease HIV transmission by 96% in serodiscordant couples, whereas pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) based on Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate or on the latter drug plus Emtricitabine (Truvada®) has been found to be 45 to 75% protective against HIV acquisition in four randomized controlled trials when used orally; no protection at all was observed in two trials conducted among women at high risk in African countries. These failures have now been shown to be mainly related to issues of poor adherence to the study drugs rather than poor biological efficacy. On the other hand, when combining data from several trials, the level of protection against HIV acquisition reached 90% among the sub-groups of trial participants achieving high levels of compliance. Based on the generally positive results obtained. Truvada® is now approved for PrEP by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PrEP is largely considered a preventive individual-level intervention. However, it could potentially also have an impact at the population-level and help control the HIV epidemic if rolled out and adopted on a large scale for HIV prevention, especially among the most vulnerable populations. However, the feasibility of this approach is somewhat questioned by the low treatment adherence levels achieved in trials recruiting specifically highly vulnerable women in Africa. On the other hand, TasP can be viewed as a more classical public health intervention, as its population-level impact will largely depend on the coverage achieved in people at risk of transmitting HIV. However, the trial demonstrating TasP efficacy was carried out in serodiscordant couples, a population where treatment adherence may well be higher than in high-risk women who do not have a stable partner and who have shown lower levels of compliance than most other groups in the PrEP trials.