The WA Aids Council has welcomed increased Government funding to end the HIV epidemic but says efforts must be made to reduce rates among overseas-born people.
The Federal Budget invested $43.9 million to eliminate transmission, the centrepiece of which was a $26 million investment to subsidise HIV prevention medication PrEP for people living in Australia and ineligible for Medicare.
On Tuesday, Health Minister Mark Butler and Assistant Minister Ged Kearney met with HIV taskforce members in Sydney, as the Government backed a new multinational prevention access campaign.
The campaign champions the principle U=U, meaning undetectable viral loads cannot transmit HIV through sexual contact.
Australia recorded a rate of 0.14 per cent of its population living with HIV in 2022, a lower prevalence than other countries including the US which reported a rate of 0.4 per cent in 2021.
While the country has shown a steady decline in diagnoses, people who acquired HIV from heterosexual sex and people who were born overseas haven’t shown the same decline, the Kirby Institute says.
WAAC chief executive Daniel Vujcich says the successes of low transmission rates aren’t being distributed evenly across groups.
![Dr Daniel Vujcich WAAC](https://timesofsydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/fcc27471cfb9e53ab99b9bfd178c1bd643dd291b.jpg)
“What we’re seeing is that increasing rates of notifications among overseas born people, particularly in WA, almost half of our notifications come from overseas-born people,” he said.
“Historically that hasn’t been the case.”
UNSW experts have attributed this to several likely reasons — including a lack of culturally appropriate health services and resources, as well as the ongoing effects of stigma.
$1 million has also been allocated in this year’s Budget to raise awareness of HIV among recently arrived migrants and people born overseas, to help link them to appropriate services.
Dr Vujcich said the change in epidemiology was a reminder HIV “doesn’t discriminate”.
“We need to get better at telling everyone — regardless of who they have sex with or where they were born — that HIV is still a public health issue in Australia,” he said.
“It is also important that we impart this message to younger Australians who didn’t live through the crisis of the eighties and nineties.
“None of us should be complacent.”
Australia’s peak sex worker organisation also endorsed the Government’s budget commitment last week as turbocharging the country’s “world-leading response” to HIV.
Scarlet Alliance chief executive Mish Pony said the funding was critical for sex workers.
“This budget commitment is profoundly important for sex workers, who have been vigilant about HIV since its emergence four decades ago,” she said.
“By resourcing community-led responses we will accelerate the end of Australian HIV transmission.”
Dr Vujcich told The West Australian he remained confident virtual elimination could be reached within Australia by 2030 — meaning rates of less than 90 new cases annually.
“We stand to be one of the first — if not the first — countries in the world to achieve virtual elimination, which would be a real unprecedented public health success story when you think about where we were with the epidemic in the 1980s to now,” he said.
“However, it will require sustained investment and innovative, community-driven responses to ensure that no group is left behind.”