The year was 1987 and the Grim Reaper (a personification of death), holding a large scythe, rolled a 10-pin bowling ball through a dark, foggy place. In the well-known advertisement on television, the cloaked skeleton aimed the bowling ball at the other end of a lane where a group of people stood in place of pins.
Who would fall next?
In the 1980s, cases of HIV were rising in the community and people in Australia and elsewhere were dying of AIDS. The Australian government opted to use mainstream media to deliver a blunt message through advertising to raise awareness about the health risk and how to manage HIV in the community.
But the campaign also contributed to stigma for those living with the disease and especially those in the gay community who felt ostracized by rising public concern.
In the inner city of Sydney, Australia, a few thousand people died of AIDS, Andrew Grulich, MD, PhD, from the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and involved in tracking cases, told Medscape Medical News. “Sydney was devastated by AIDS, it was truly devastated.”
HIV and AIDS quickly became an even more severe problem for several countries around Australia in Thailand, Papua New Guinea, and beyond. After HIV was first reported in Thailand in 1984, the region had the highest prevalence of HIV in Southeast Asia. Through the 1990s in Papua New Guinea, HIV prevalence rose steeply as well.
By 2010, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) set a target of a 90% reduction in HIV incidence, a 90% reduction in AIDS deaths by 2030, and 95% of people living with HIV and AIDS being aware of their status, on treatment, and having an undetectable viral load.
Since then, significant progress has been made globally with 86% of people knowing their HIV status. However, new infections persist at a rate that has not dropped as fast as possible.
New Infections
According to the latest UNAIDS report, regions of North America and western and central Europe showed a 23% decline in new infections from 2010 to 2022, below the target 90% reduction.
Some regions of the US have seen significant declines in new HIV infections. San Francisco, California, has a 67% drop in new diagnoses. And now, along with the District of Columbia, the four states with the highest HIV rates are New York, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida.
Several countries in eastern and southern Africa are close to achieving their target HIV reduction of 90%.
Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC for global health advocacy, access, and equity, said that many of the low- and middle-income countries that are on track to achieve targets are able to do so because of support from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
“That foreign development assistance is transforming the AIDS response in a number of African countries, and yet at home, in various states and municipalities, not only are we not reaching that effort, we don’t even use those targets,” Warren pointed out.
“We might see municipalities that are performing well, but at a national level it’s frankly a disgrace by comparison, because we know what’s possible,” Warren said.
Lowering Cases
Today, in the inner city of Sydney, Australia, new HIV diagnoses have plummeted by 88%, which puts the area on track to achieve the 90% UNAIDS target ahead of schedule.
Grulich and his team at the Kirby Institute are tracking new diagnoses by postal code and reported their encouraging findings this week at the International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science in Brisbane, Australia.
“This 88% decline is happening in an area where, in the 80s and 90s, a few thousand people died of AIDS,” Grulich told Medscape Medical News. “It feels close to miraculous.”
Grulich attributes some of the success to long-term government leadership that for the most part has been apolitical. HIV has been perceived by the public as an important health issue to be addressed. “We’ve never had a political contest over it,” he added. “We have politicians who are committed to evidence-based policy.”
In inner city Sydney, HIV prevention campaigns are a visible part of community life, Grulich explained. At public events, it is discussed; at bus stops, posters are on display; and passing trains have messages plastered to the side of them.
That community effort has consistently received government funding for years — albeit linked to key performance indicators — but it has enabled a high level of communication between government, community, clinicians, and researchers.
Another advantage is Australia’s universal health coverage, said Sharon Lewin, PhD, president of the International AIDS Society and director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. “One very clear difference for Australia is a health system that provides free medication and free prevention,” she said. “You can’t underestimate the impact that has on public health.”
Globally, significant progress has been made towards the UN’s 95-95-95 targets, with 86% of people with HIV now knowing their status, 88% of those being on treatment, and 93% of those having an undetectable viral load, “for a total of 75% of all people living with HIV worldwide with undetectable viral load,” Grulich pointed out.
But Lewin cautioned that now is not the time to take our eye off the ball, especially with respect to the 39 million or so people living with HIV globally, all of whom need lifelong treatment and care to manage their disease. “We also need to be aware that if we relax the investment, and people stop their treatment, transmission occurs again,” Lewin warned. “Despite the great news of potentially getting close to eliminating HIV transmission in Australia, HIV is far from over.”
International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science. Presented July 2023.
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