NAPWHA has joined key stakeholders in the HIV response in urging donors, governments, communities and people living with HIV to redouble their efforts to address the HIV ‘crisis’ in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
High levels of resistance to first-line antiretroviral (ART) treatments
Frequent stock-outs of ART drugs causing interruptions to routine treatment
Crisis-level rates of HIV transmission from parents to children
Many people in key populations unaware of their HIV status
Poor uptake of prevention methods, including condoms
Stigma and discrimination as barriers to service access
The signatories – Burnet Institute, National AIDS Council of Papua New Guinea, ASHM, PNG National Department of Health, National Association for People with HIV Australia (NAPWHA), and Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) – identify the HIV epidemic in PNG as ‘a growing health security risk to Australasia and the Indo-Pacific region’.
NAPWHA’s earliest collaboration with the positive people’s movement in PNG pre-dates the formal establishment and incorporation of Igat Hope — a national association which acts on behalf of PLHIV throughout PNG and represents PLHIV in a range of important forums and committees since 2003. Before there was any formal PLHIV group in PNG, individual HIV-positive advocates in that country had begun to seek support and advice from positive activists in Australia.
Through the Collaboration for Health in Papua New Guinea (CHPNG), NAPWHA was able to plan work in PNG in a more structured way with project activities which aimed to build the local capacity of the people of PNG in their response to HIV.
“NAPWHA are committed to working on supporting our communities in PNG and Igat Hope for as long as is required,” said Dr John Rule, NAPWHA Senior Research Manager.
The signatories make a number of key recommendations including:
A fully-funded and secure budget for ART including immediate roll-out of new HIV treatments
Appropriate training and support for healthcare workers
Creation of a six-month drug supply buffer nationally, and three months for clinics
Increased access to HIV testing linked to treatment and care
“Now is a time for increased focus, attention and resourcing to help our communities in PNG to get on top of these priority actions,” Dr Rule said.
Find out more about NAPWHA’s work in PNG as part of the Collaboration of Health in PNG (CHPNG) and partnerships with Igat Hope — a national association which acts on behalf of PLHIV throughout PNG
In this video episode of Let Women Talk, HIV community advocate Sarah Feagan speaks with Dr. Allison (Allie) Carter, a Lecturer in Sexual Health at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, from the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference held in Perth on 17-19 September about. Allie has been engaged in research at the intersection of sexuality, health, and human rights for nearly a decade, with a focus on the lives of women. She is the founding co-editor of Life and Love with HIV, a blog and online community for women and couples around the world to share stories of sexuality, romance, and love.
About Life and Love with HIV
Life and Love with HIV is a blog and online community dedicated to de-stigmatising sexuality and relationships among women, partners, and couples living with HIV by shifting the focus from risk to pleasure. In creating our own stories, in our own voices, with our own words, our goal is to reclaim our sexual rights around the world.
But Beyoncé wasn’t built in a day! Turning this idea into action happened over the course of three years. We hosted several sex-positive workshops with women. We also scoured the web, collecting what little resources we could find. And we started community building, eventually recruiting a diverse team of writers from around the world with the help of social media. What began as a small grassroots, volunteer-run effort in British Columbia, Canada, slowly transformed into the global platform it is today.
Find out about Let Women Talk
Let Women Talk is a NAPWHA community-led health literacy initiative where HIV community advocates incorporate their rich perspectives and diverse lived HIV experiences back into strengthening community health responses — where women design and develop the health content and interventions that they want to see and hear. The initiative is one of many activities forming part of the HIV Health Literacy Framework Project, a NAPWHA project supported through the funding of ViiV Healthcare Australia.
Allie Carter is a feminist author, speaker, activist, and researcher — engaged in research to advance women’s sexual health and rights for nearly a decade, with a particular focus on hidden and under-served communities. She received her MPH and PhD at Simon Fraser University in Canada and worked previously at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. She is presently a Lecturer in Sexual Health at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales. Allie has published over 30 scientific articles and her work has appeared in CBC, CTV, The Star, Ravishly, and much more. She has a deep passion for communicating science through narrative and is currently writing her first book.
Sarah Feagan is a queer women who has been living with HIV since 2008. She is the previous chair of Positive Women Victoria and has recently joined the team at Living Positive Victoria as a Peer Navigator. She also the Vice President of NAPWHA. Sarah is a co-facilitator of Phoenix for Women and the Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDi) . Sarah has unique approach to her advocacy and is inspired by the lived experience of the body positive to inform her practice. Sarah’s advocacy spans the from the grass roots all the way up to high level governance. She has a global outlook with a local focus to bringing the community along with her.
In this video episode of Let Women Talk, HIV community advocate Sarah Feagan speaks with Dr Moira Wilson — an infectious diseases consultant working at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, and part of the West Australian HIV positive women’s pregnancy management team. Dr Wilson presented at the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference held in Perth on 17-19 September about the updates in management for women who are pregnant living with HIV.
About the presentation
Dr Wilson presented the latest evidence around antiretroviral therapy (ART) use in pregnancy. At the at 10th IAS Conference on HIV Science held in Mexico City in July 2019, results of an expansion of the Tsepamo study in Botswana were presented. While the risk with Dolutegravir (DTG) and neural tube defects appears to be much lower than first thought, the signal still remains. Guidelines are not excluding Dolutegravir as an otherwise excellent choice for use in pregnancy, however, it should be avoided in the first 8 weeks, and hence, avoided in women of childbearing potential who are not using a reliable method of contraception.
Also in this video series is Sarah Feagan & Carole Khawwho speak about a case study with a pregnant woman on DTG.
Hear a Praxhub podcast of Dr Brad McKay from East Sydney Doctors speaking to Dr Sorana Segal-Maurer (Director of Infectious Diseases at New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital,USA) and Dr Moira Wilson (Fiona Stanley Hospital, Perth) about challenges in the diagnosis and treatment of HIV in women on 18 February 2019 — Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Find out about Let Women Talk
Let Women Talk is a NAPWHA community-led health literacy initiative where HIV community advocates incorporate their rich perspectives and diverse lived HIV experiences back into strengthening community health responses — where women design and develop the health content and interventions that they want to see and hear. The initiative is one of many activities forming part of the HIV Health Literacy Framework Project, a NAPWHA project supported through the funding of ViiV Healthcare Australia.
Dr Moira Wilson is an infectious diseases consultant working at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth. She has been managing patients with HIV/AIDS since 1986, both in Australia and internationally, and has a strong interest in the holistic management of women living with HIV. She is part of the West Australian HIV positive women’s pregnancy management team.
Sarah Feagan is a queer women who has been living with HIV since 2008. She is the previous chair of Positive Women Victoria and has recently joined the team at Living Positive Victoria as a Peer Navigator. She also the Vice President of NAPWHA. Sarah is a co-facilitator of Phoenix for Women and the Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDi). Sarah has unique approach to her advocacy and is inspired by the lived experience of the body positive to inform her practice. Sarah’s advocacy spans the from the grass roots all the way up to high level governance. She has a global outlook with a local focus to bringing the community along with her.
In this video episode of Let Women Talk, HIV community advocate Sarah Feagan speaks with Liz Duck-Chong — writer, sexual health advocate, and podcast co-host of Let’s Do It, at the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference held in Perth on 17-19 September. Liz tells Sarah about trans[TEST] — a new peer-led, sexual health service for anyone who is trans or gender diverse (TGD) in Sydney.
About trans[TEST]
trans[TEST] is a new peer-led, sexual health service for anyone who is trans or gender diverse (TGD) — a partnership between ACON and the Kirketon Road Centre (KRC). The trans[TEST] model combines trained TGD peers working with sexual health nurses and doctors to deliver HIV and STI testing and other sexual health services. The service operates on the first and third Friday of each month at Clinic 180 in Kings Cross, Sydney, with appointments from 11:30am to 5pm.
Find out about Let Women Talk
Let Women Talk is a NAPWHA community-led health literacy initiative where HIV community advocates incorporate their rich perspectives and diverse lived HIV experiences back into strengthening community health responses — where women design and develop the health content and interventions that they want to see and hear. The initiative is one of many activities forming part of the HIV Health Literacy Framework Project, a NAPWHA project supported through the funding of ViiV Healthcare Australia.
Liz Duck-Chong is a writer, sexual health advocate, filmmaker and transgender bon vivant who writes about the reproductive health, rape politics, girldick, and far more besides. She can be found on Twitter at @lizduckchong, in your ears at @letsdoitpodcast— lizduckchong.com
Sarah Feagan is a queer women who has been living with HIV since 2008. She is the previous chair of Positive Women Victoria and has recently joined the team at Living Positive Victoria as a Peer Navigator. She also the Vice President of NAPWHA. Sarah is a co-facilitator of Phoenix for Women and the Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDi). Sarah has unique approach to her advocacy and is inspired by the lived experience of the body positive to inform her practice. Sarah’s advocacy spans the from the grass roots all the way up to high level governance. She has a global outlook with a local focus to bringing the community along with her.
In this video episode of Let Women Talk, HIV community advocate Sarah Feagan speaks with Shoshana Rosenberg — a sexological researcher at currently working with the Kirby Institute (UNSW) and SiREN (Curtin), who presented the opening plenary at the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference held in Perth on 17-19 September. Shoshana spoke about the first survey of trans and gender diverse sexual health in Australia and how the findings reveal major gaps in health system.
About the presentation
There is an urgent need to prioritise health resources and services to support the sexual health and wellbeing of transgender (‘trans’) and gender diverse people, according to a new report from the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney, launched at the Australasian Sexual Health Conference in Perth.
More than half of trans and gender diverse people who participated in the survey had ever experienced sexual violence or coercion, a rate that is four times higher than the general Australian population. Further, less than half of people who experienced sexual violence or coercion reported it to someone or otherwise sought help.
Shoshana Rosenberg is one of the study investigators: “While some of the survey results are deeply concerning, we also found that many trans and gender diverse people lead happy sexual and romantic lives. Trans and gender diverse people engage in a wide range of sexual practices, we get married and divorced, look for sex and love online and offline, and form partnerships with people of all genders. In this way, we are quite like the rest of Australia. Australia’s sexual health policies, guidelines and services require a lot of work to improve health in this domain. Sexual health is a key factor in our overall health and well being, which is why it is great that, for the first time, we have data to guide this important work.”
Let Women Talk is a NAPWHA community-led health literacy initiative where HIV community advocates incorporate their rich perspectives and diverse lived HIV experiences back into strengthening community health responses — where women design and develop the health content and interventions that they want to see and hear. The initiative is one of many activities forming part of the HIV Health Literacy Framework Project, a NAPWHA project supported through the funding of ViiV Healthcare Australia.
Shoshana Rosenberg is a sexological researcher based between Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar (Perth) and Naarm/Birraranga (Melbourne). They are currently working with the Kirby Institute (UNSW) and SiREN (Curtin) on a variety of sexual health projects. Their research interests include gender and sexual diversity, queer theory, Jewish studies, and musicology — shoshanarosenberg.com
Sarah Feagan is a queer women who has been living with HIV since 2008. She is the previous chair of Positive Women Victoria and has recently joined the team at Living Positive Victoria as a Peer Navigator. She also the Vice President of NAPWHA. Sarah is a co-facilitator of Phoenix for Women and the Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDi). Sarah has unique approach to her advocacy and is inspired by the lived experience of the body positive to inform her practice. Sarah’s advocacy spans the from the grass roots all the way up to high level governance. She has a global outlook with a local focus to bringing the community along with her.
