The UN High Level Meeting Gay and bisexual men are likely to be prioritised as a group most affected by HIV for the first time, after a successful push from the New Zealand representative at a UN meeting in New York. The 2011 High Level Meeting on AIDS UN HLM coincides with the 30th anniversary of the first AIDS case reported in the USA. It is being held at the UN General Assembly in New York and finished today. New Zealand is being represented at the UN High Level Meeting by Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Bernadette Cavanagh, who has pushed for the inclusion of gay and bisexual men as a most impacted group, something the New Zealand AIDS Foundation advocated strongly for. "The inclusion of men who have sex with men as a high risk population group reflects the reality of the HIV epidemic in New Zealand as well as in other developed countries," says NZAF Executive Director Shaun Robinson. "New Zealand has been very successful in controlling the HIV epidemic among sex workers and injecting drug users, but the epidemic in our gay and bisexual men’s communities has never been worse so we are very pleased to see this as a priority on the international agenda." Robinson says the statement from the UN will have practical outcomes for HIV prevention worldwide. "Some of the conservative values represented at the UN have been very opposed to naming the groups of people most affected by HIV but we think it’s essential to recognise who’s at risk. If you can't even name the people who are affected, you certainly can't target them with HIV prevention initiatives so this meeting has been very important." Sexual transmission of HIV accounts for the vast majority of new diagnoses in New Zealand. Over the last ten years, gay and bisexual men have accounted for 77 per cent of HIV diagnoses where infection occurred New Zealand. In 2010, HIV diagnoses for gay and bisexual men continued to steadily increase while heterosexual acquired diagnoses decreased sharply. Robinson says anyone who has unsafe sex can access a free and anonymous test for HIV that takes just ten minutes to provide a result through the NZAF.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 10th June 2011 - 12:23pm