HIV Elimination Within Australia’s Reach

Australian HIV diagnoses have hit an all-time low, with the country insight of eliminating transmissions. A legacy of Australia’s early, effective response.

Australia’s exceptional HIV/Aids response owes much, experts say, to politicians and other powerful decision-makers offering communities most affected, seats at the table.

It was an extraordinary “leap of faith”, says author Nick Cook.

According to cook, the government could funnel money into trusted community groups who could converse with members of the affected communities and aid them to get help.

As the 40th anniversary of Australia’s first HIV diagnosis approaches, two recent books detail what set apart the country’s lauded public health response.

Cook’s Fighting for Our Lives charts the collaboration mentioned above, while In The Eye Of The Storm, by three Australian academics, tells the under-reported stories of individuals who volunteered in vast numbers to ease suffering.

By the end of the 1980s, Australia was hailed by the World Health Organization as a prevention model for other countries to emulate.

It was one of the few nations that avoided an epidemic among injecting drug users, with rates five to 10 times less than some European countries and parts of the US.

Cook says Australia’s isolated geography provided a “head start” – the virus arrived later.

There was also a recently co-ordinated and emboldened community, ready to step up and this created the conditions for people to volunteer in such high numbers, says Dr Shirleene Robinson.

“The infrastructure existed: publications, connections and organizations that could be directed towards the epidemic,” the co-author of In the Eye of the Storm says.

Volunteers – many gravely ill or experiencing deep grief – provided in-home care for the sick and dying, staffed needle exchanges and telephone helplines, produced educational resources, served on boards of management, and provided friendship and practical support

They helped those with HIV/Aids navigate a hostile medical system that had, in preceding decades, treated gay men as mentally ill and requiring curing.

The Victorian Aids Council ran training sessions on how to care for dying people for those who’d never done so.