Source: Radio New Zealand
The report shows that investing in HIV prevention and stigma initiatives is worthwhile, says a health expert. File photo.
A public health researcher is celebrating a 29 percent decrease in new HIV diagnoses from 85 in 2010 to 60 in 2024.
The statistic comes from the Ministry of Health’s HIV Monitoring Report, released today on World AIDS Day.
It is the first time progress towards New Zealand’s 2030 goal of reducing local transmission of HIV by 90 percent has been tracked since it was set in 2023.
Associate Professor at the University of Auckland’s School of Population Health Peter Saxton said the report was encouraging and showed that investing in HIV prevention and stigma initiatives was worthwhile, especially when there were scarce health dollars available.
“This report is an opportunity to hold the government to account to fund the services that will get us to zero, but also agencies involved in the response; community agencies, researchers, communities themselves, the health services delivering HIV testing and PrEP services, hold everybody accountable to reaching that 2030 target.”
“It’s important to remember that we have all the tools to end the epidemic now, so we can end AIDS, and we can end transmission.”
However, he said that among takatāpui, or Māori men who have sex with men (MSM), there had not been a drop in new HIV diagnoses.
“That’s been pretty static for about the last 10 years, and we’ve seen only more modest increases in PrEP uptake; for Māori, that’s increased by about two percent, whereas for other gay and bisexual men it’s five to six percent.
“We know that prevention works, but only if it’s accessible to everyone. So we want to see innovations in HIV testing, and PrEP made more accessible and available in a more timely way.”
He said there had also been 28 AIDS diagnoses in 2024, which was a concern.
“An AIDS AIDS diagnosis means that someone’s typically lived with HIV undiagnosed and therefore untreated; that number should already be 0.
“If someone’s been exposed to HIV, the best outcome for them is to get an early diagnosis, go on treatment, and then they won’t be able to transmit HIV to others. So that’s an absolute priority.
“We need to think of opportunities where if we’re already drawing blood, for example, if there’s an opportunity to include HIV testing as part of that blood draw. But also syphilis and hepatitis C, these are things that can be treated, and in some cases cured, if it’s syphilis and hepatitis C. We want to make sure that we take a whole-of-system approach, it’s not just focused on HIV.”
He said eliminating stigma also needed to be a priority over the next five years.
“HIV stigma means that people might hesitate before asking for an HIV test or feel judged if they’re offered one, and we’re not going to end the HIV epidemic if we don’t end HIV stigma.”
He said the second annual AIDS Day parliamentary breakfast being held in Wellington on Monday morning was a good time to bring up these concerns.
“This 2030 target was an agreement across political parties generally. That’s why the parliamentary breakfast today is really important because it’s an opportunity to share with our political parties what we’re doing, what’s going well, but also what needs to improve so we can refocus our efforts for the next 12 months.
“HIV is one of our public health success stories, and we often forget to talk about it in that way. That’s because of our really early response in the 1980s, which was based on science, not moralism. It was a very pragmatic response. And, really importantly, it was a bipartisan response.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
