The Inner Sydney district, once the epicentre of Australia’s HIV epidemic, is very close to becoming the first place in the world to reach the UN’s target for ending transmission of the virus, researchers said on Monday.
UNAIDS has set a goal of ending AIDS as a global health threat by 2030, which includes reducing the number of new HIV cases by 90% compared to 2010.
In inner Sydney, new infections among gay men dropped by 88% from 2010 to 2022, researchers announced at the International AIDS Society’s HIV science conference being held in the Australian city of Brisbane.
Andrew Grulich, an epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales who presented the research, told AFP that “we’re very nearly there” some eight years ahead of the 2030 target.
Just 11 new HIV cases were recorded in inner Sydney last year, “an extraordinarily small number of infections for what was the heart of the Australian HIV epidemic,” Grulich said.
Gay men make up an estimated 20% of the male population in inner Sydney, and they represent the large majority of the city’s HIV cases.
Grulich said that several areas in the UK and Western Europe have also seen rapid drops in new HIV cases.
But “I don’t think anywhere has gotten close to 90%,” he added.
Since Sydney has “virtually” already reached the target, that shows that it is feasible goal, he said.
However Grulich emphasised that this does not mean that HIV is close to being eliminated in the city of more than 5.2 million people.
“HIV can only be eliminated if we have a vaccine and a cure,” he said.
And the drop in new HIV cases was far less precipitous in other parts of Sydney.
In the city’s outer suburbs, new cases have only fallen by 31% since 2010, the researchers found.
This disparity was due to a much rate higher of HIV testing and use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) — which reduces the risk of transmitting HIV during sex — in the inner city, Grulich said.
He said another cause for progress was that around 95% of HIV-positive people in…
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