Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tomorrow is World AIDS Day, a day to raise awareness of HIV-AIDS issues to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died. We have come a long way since the first Word AIDS Day in 1988. While AIDS has killed more 36 million people since the early 1980s, medical advances mean that with appropriate testing and treatment, HIV today is now a chronic disease not a death sentence. Those of us who have lost loved ones to AIDS should take solace from this progress. Unfortunately, despite this, a lack of access to testing and treatment means that even today, AIDS takes around two million lives each year, including around 270,000 children worldwide. As we have seen in some of the coverage surrounding the recent diagnosis of Charlie Sheen, even in the developing world HIV still carries a stigma, which we must continue to work to break down.

The theme of this year's World AIDS Day is 'Getting to zero—zero new HIV infections, zero deaths from AIDS-related illness, zero discrimination. This is a laudable objective indeed. In the Aids 2014 legacy statement, all Australian health ministers agreed to the objective of virtually eliminating new HIV infections in Australia by 2020. But with four years to go, we still have some work to do. A doubling of testing rates, educational campaigns and a renewed emphasis on early access to HIV treatments have contributed to the stabilising of diagnoses in recent years, but more needs to be done. Pre-exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP, is a relatively new drug that gives us a realistic chance of almost completely the accidental spread of HIV in Australia. When used daily, the US CDC has estimated that PrEP reduces the risk of contracting HIV from sex by more than 90 per cent and from intravenous drug use by more than 70 per cent. That is why Labor included support for PrEP in section 96 of our national platform this year, which reads: 'Labor recognises the importance of renewing efforts to reduce the spread of HIV-AIDS, including adopting prophylactic treatments, subject to the approval of independent regulators and any recommendation from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, sexually-transmitted infections, and blood borne viruses, in partnership with the non-governmental organisation sector and driven by expert evidence.'

Currently the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme does not yet subsidise these PrEP drugs. Although PrEP can be prescribed off label and is prohibitively priced at around $10,000 per year, cheaper generic brands can be obtained via online pharmacies but this is a potentially risky option. Gilead is currently seeking TGA approval to licence TRUVADA for PrEP use is Australia, but it could be months or even years before it is listed on the subsidised PBS, and available for only $27.70 a script, should experts recommend that PrEP be included on the PBS. I urge the government not to delay and to swiftly ensure that PrEP is made available to Australians throughout Australia through the PBS.