ASHM Report Back
Clinical posts from members and guests of the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM) from various international medical and scientific conferences on HIV, AIDS, viral hepatitis, and sexual health.
NSW HIV Diagnosis and Care Cascade
Philip Keen, the co-ordinator of the NHPPP from the Kirby Institute gave a fairly uplifting presentation on the diagnosis and care cascade in NSW in relation to meeting the 90:90:90 targets.
90:90:90 refers to the WHOs aim of having 90% of PLHIV diagnosed, 90% of those diagnosed on treatment, and 90% of those on treatment with a suppressed viral load. The result would be 73% of PLHIV having a suppressed viral load.
No surprise Sweden were the first to reach this goal, with 78.8% of PLHIV with a suppressed viral load. Numerous other countries have subsequently demonstrated >73% of the PLHIV with suppressed viral loads.
In Australia we fall short of this mark. However in 2016 health surveillance of the data from NSW had some interesting results. 91.3% of PLHIV were Diagnosed, 92% of these were receiving treatment and 94.5% of those on treatment had a suppressed VL. This equated to 79.3 % of PLHIV in NSW having a suppressed Viral load. Better than Sweden.
So this proves what I have always said, that NSW should form its own country as the rest of the country is holding us back... In all honesty it demonstrates there is probably a significant amount of inequality between various parts of Australia in accessing appropriate care.