Since 2012, the government of New South Wales (NSW), an Australian state whose capital is Sydney, has committed to the virtual elimination of HIV transmission. Universal health care and redesign of public sexual health services, including making HIV testing more accessible and community-led ‘Ending HIV’ campaigns, has led to high testing and treatment rates.

By 2016, NSW met the UNAIDS 90/90/90 targets. That same year, rapid roll-out of PrEP to people at high-risk of HIV began; by 2018, over 9,000 people were receiving PrEP. A strong partnership approach between affected communities, government, clinicians, and researchers has led to the lowest rate of HIV notifications in NSW since surveillance began in 1985.

Citations

The analysis here from the New South Wales Ministry of Health presents an age-standardized HIV diagnosis rate, rather than a number of diagnoses.

NSW Government. NSW HIV Strategy 2016 – 2020: Quarter 4 & Annual 2018 Data Report. 2018.

Keen P, Gray RT, Telfer B et al. on behalf of the NSW HIV Prevention Partnership Project. The 2016 HIV diagnosis and care cascade in New South Wales, Australia: meeting the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets. J Int AIDS Soc. 2018;21:e25109.

Grulich AE, Guy R, Amin J et al. for the Expanded PrEP Implementation in Communities New South Wales (EPIC-NSW) research group. Population-level effectiveness of rapid, targeted, high-coverage roll-out of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in men who have sex with men: the EPIC-NSW study. The Lancet HIV. 2018;5:e629-37.

Broady T, Mao L, Lee E et al. Gay Community Periodic Survey: Sydney 2018. Sydney: Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Sydney; 2018.