NSW HIV Strategy 2021 – 2025
The NSW HIV Strategy 2021-2025, launched in February 2021, continues the commitment to achieving the virtual elimination of HIV transmission in NSW by 2025, building on the success of the NSW HIV Strategy 2016-2020. To make new gains, the Strategy will address barriers created by stigma and encourage ongoing innovation.
From Brad Hazzard MP, Minister for Health and Medical Research:
New South Wales is recognised as a world leader in responding to HIV. Beginning with our swift response to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, we have worked with people living with and affected by HIV to innovate, to prevent infections and to care for those living with HIV.
New ways to prevent, test and treat HIV have led to dramatic reductions in transmission, and notifications are now the lowest since surveillance began in 1985. Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, has played a pivotal role in preventing new infections since we implemented EPIC-NSW, one of the world’s largest implementation trials, for rapid roll-out across the state.
These innovations mean that the virtual elimination of HIV transmission in NSW, once inconceivable, is now a realistic and achievable goal.
The partnership between the community, government, researchers and clinicians has been critical to our success. Working together, we have:
- met two of the UNAIDS targets, with 95% of people living with diagnosed HIV on treatment, and 95% of those diagnosed on treatment with a suppressed viral load
- seen a 19% reduction in new HIV notifications in NSW residents over the past five years
- sustained the virtual elimination of HIV transmission between mother and child, among people who inject drugs, and among female sex workers.
But not every at-risk population has experienced the same level of success. Stigma and discrimination also continue to create barriers to accessing PrEP, testing and treatment.
The new Strategy builds on the momentum of the previous two strategies, while introducing a renewed focus on working with sub-populations where change has not been as substantial, reducing stigma as a barrier to prevention, testing and treatment, and encouraging ongoing innovation.
I am pleased to present the NSW HIV Strategy 2021–2025, which will guide our response to achieving the virtual elimination of HIV transmission in NSW and support everyone living with HIV.