Media Release | Wednesday 21 July 2010

HIV community leaders warn: Australia in danger of following Canada’s Indigenous HIV nightmare

Australia is in danger of following the disastrous HIV epidemic that Canada’s Indigenous populations have suffered over the last decade warned Don Baxter, Executive Director of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) and Mr Colin Ross, President of the Anwernekenhe National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander HIV Alliance (ANA) today.

Mr Baxter is attending the 17th International AIDS Conference being conducted in Vienna this week.

“The pre-conditions in Australia now are quite similar to Canada in the 1990s – a rapid increase in injecting drug use in Indigenous communities whose overwhelming focus on serious immediate health challenges meant a tardy, patchy response to the threat of HIV in those communities”, Baxter said.
“That situation saw HIV infections among Indigenous Canadians rise from 3.7% of all HIV infections in Canada during the period 1979-1998 to a dramatic 23.3% of all HIV infections in the decade 1998 to 2007.”

Mr Baxter said more detailed analysis of this catastrophe will be presented at the World AIDS Conference’s International Indigenous Working Group sessions in Vienna this week.

“Australia must not repeat this disaster – we in the Anwernkenhe National HIV Alliance believe it’s still avoidable here but time is running out rapidly”, said its Chairperson, Mr Colin Ross.

Mr Baxter and Mr Ross called on all the major political parties contesting the current Federal Election to make explicit commitments of ongoing funding for the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander HIV/AIDS Project conducted by AFAO in partnership with the Anwernekenhe National HIV/AIDS Alliance.
“Getting effective needle syringe programs into our Aboriginal communities is even more challenging than in mainstream communities as many of the our leading community elders have not moved beyond a “Just Say No” approach to drugs, which is clearly not working among many of our younger community members”, Mr Ross said.

Mr Ross said that the effective change of approach to needle and syringe availability needed in ATSI communities would only come about when Indigenous community HIV advocates were able to persuade the community elders to adopt a different approach.

“The ANA and the National HIV/AIDS Project have led the way in changing the Indigenous communities’ willingness to address the need for safe sex in our communities over the last two decades and now we need to change the elders views about needle availability and drug use or we will replicate the Canadian experience here”, Mr Ross said.