It’s almost 40 years since the first cases of HIV were discovered. Today around 30,000 Australians are living with the virus. With antiretroviral treatments and proper care HIV is, today, a lifelong condition that can be managed – but not cured. Over the past four decades there have been endless media reports suggesting that the […]
Acclaimed author and trailblazing AIDS activist Larry Kramer has died aged 84. Kramer was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Network, a grassroots community organisation that tackled the lack of government action in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, he later told the story of that fight through his award winning play The […]
On This Gay Day: The first report about HIV/AIDS was published in 1981 It’s often reported that the first information about what would later be identified as HIV/AIDS was when on 5 June 1981 the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention published a notice about gay men who had died rare, and usually curable […]
Why are we still lighting candles for people who died of AIDS? Globally UNAIDS reported in July 2019 that approximately 1.7 million acquired HIV and approximately 800,000 people died of AIDS in 2018. Our response to COVID-19 makes sense because we know what happens when we choose not to care and ignore public health threats, […]
The National Association of People with HIV/AIDS (NAPWHA) have issued a statement addressing growing community concern about accessibility to antiretroviral medication used to treat HIV. The health advocacy organisation says there is no need for alarm and it is important not to spark consumer panic and create unnecessary anxiety. In their statement the group makes […]
The Western Australian AIDS Council is welcoming suggestions for a new name for the organisation. More than 30 years after the organisation was formed its operations have grown to encompass a wide range of activities, many of which are not represented by their current name. In a video explaining their desire to rebrand the organisation […]
Author Randy Shilts was known as the first openly gay journalist Randy Shilts died on this day in 1994, the author is best known for his 1987 book And The Band Played On which documented the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Shilts studied journalism and the University of Oregon and came out while he working on […]
A Chinese scientist who claimed to have created ‘gene edited’ babies that were resistant to HIV has been jailed for three years for unethical practices. He Jiankui faced a global backlash in 2018 when he announced the birth of twin girls who he claimed he had successfully ‘gene edited’ to make them immune to HIV. […]
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has knocked back new HIV medication Cabenuva, declining to add it to the list of approved medications in the USA. The new medication is a once a month treatment for people living with HIV, rather than the regime of daily pill taking. The treatment sees patients receiving two injections […]
Rather than a once a day pill, in the future PrEP might be something you only have to think about once a year. Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) treatments have seen the rate of new transmissions of HIV plummet in areas where the daily medication is readily available. Scientists are now testing more long-term ways of delivering […]
