AIDS IN AUSTRALIA

THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF AIDS IN AUSTRALIA

While some countries in the world have seen the AIDS epidemic flare out of control because of poor communications, lack of funding, or adverse social customs, the government of Australia has mounted what is arguably one of the most effective campaigns against the disease on the planet. Beginning with a pilot program in Queensland in January 1988, efforts to halt the disease have included needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users, public funding for the HIV-inhibiting medication AZT, and broad-based sex education efforts in schools. Less than two years later, funding was raised for a $318.5 million national media campaign calling for mandatory testing of blood and organ donors, and of all immigrants.

The results have evidently been effective. Although the Australians estimated that 75, 000 people were infected with HIV in February 1988, by the middle of 1992 they were counting only 30,000 people with AIDS in the country-a number far below usual projections for that time span.

According to Chris Gill, manager for the People Living with AIDs Program in Melbourne, "Australia is in fact the only country in the world where there has been a decline in the rate of transmission of HIV."

Still, Gill and other AIDS activists have not been without their detractors. One, the Australian AIDS researcher Udo Schuklenk, believes his government has made a big mistake with its bankrolling of AZT therapy (see card 71) to the exclusion of research and backing of other, less toxic types of treatment. Next Card 83: The Demographics of AIDS IN LATIN AMERICA

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