An end to the plague of HIV?
FROM PAGE C1
good. HIV case numbers fell on the back of the AIDS Foundation’s fierce campaigning of condom use. AIDS deaths plummeted as the drugs succeeded in preventing HIV’s progression to AIDS.
Today, people newly diagnosed with HIV have an almost-normal life expectancy. The disease is treated like a chronic illness, with people taking one to four pills once or twice a day.
But from 2003, new HIV cases rose and plateaued at about 200. New diagnoses rose every year from 2011 to 2016, sparking alarm. Men who have sex with men remain the most affected, making up about 65 per cent of new diagnoses.
So what has gone wrong? RiceDavies points to the two photos on his wall. ‘‘People just don’t have that history any more.’’
Fear can be a potent motivator. The extraordinary success of HIV treatment might prove the biggest barrier to its elimination. A generation who haven’t grown up seeing the horror of AIDS now see HIV as a chronic disease – pop a couple of pills and live a normal life. And that can cause complacency.
Commentators point to condom fatigue, and the growth of hook-up apps such as Tinder and Grindr, which facilitate instant, anonymous sex.
‘‘Now you can turn your iPhone on and be in someone’s bedroom in five minutes,’’ says AIDS Foundation executive director Jason Myers.
Since funding was cut for Auckland University researcher Peter Saxton’s two-yearly behavioural study, New Zealand has been ‘‘flying blind’’ in terms of understanding why HIV cases are increasing, Myers says. The last study, in 2014, showed a slight decrease in condom use, but so much has changed since then.
The government’s 2002 HIV/ AIDS strategy is now completely out of date, and more money and leadership are needed to identify the problems, and do something about them, Myers says.
There’s also concern women are not being diagnosed early, because they don’t fit the idea GPs have of a likely HIV patient.
Following the AIDS-related deaths of two women – in 2014 and 2017 – advocacy organisation Positive Women has been campaigning to increase awareness that HIV is not just a gay man’s disease.
Figures show while most gay men in New Zealand are diagnosed early, 55 per cent of people infected through heterosexual sex in 2016 were diagnosed late.
Positive Women national coordinator Jane Bruning, herself HIV positive, says the two women’s deaths and that of a heterosexual man in 2017, all followed multiple hospital admissions. That’s years of missed opportunities. She advocates HIV screening as a routine diagnostic test.
‘‘If you can get on to medication early, you can live a long, productive life. Nobody should be dying in this day and age.’’
Gayle Jonker picked up HIV through heterosexual sex while working in the United Arab Emirates. The 55-year-old West Coaster was in London on the way to visit her daughter, when she was struck with fever, stabbing pain and terrible diarrhoea.
They told her she had a migraine. Then they put her in the tropical diseases ward. It was days before anyone considered HIV. ‘‘If you’re a man, especially a gay man, the first thing they’ll do is test.’’
Having met Kiwi women who have suffered irreversible damage through late diagnosis, Jonker wants to see more readiness to test among women and among health workers.
In spite of the vast improvements in treatment, Jonker says the stigma of HIV remains alive and well.
‘‘When I first got diagnosed, I thought that I had completely f ..... up my life. Which I think is why people don’t want to admit it and maybe don’t want to get tested. It’s just shame and guilt, and that