New fight to stem AIDS spread
By Farrin Foster
05-May-2010
From Australia (first posted 01 May 2010)
An early 1990s Commonwealth Department of Health poster targeting AIDS in indigenous communities.
Australia has a fresh approach to preventing AIDS and other blood-borne viruses after recording alarming spikes in these diseases during the middle of the decade.
State, territory and federal health ministers meeting in Perth this month agreed for the first time to set measureable targets to stop the spread of these diseases.
“It seems obvious, but this is actually the first time the agreed strategies provide clear guidance for state and national programs to measurably reduce infection rates,” said Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations president Dr Graham Brown. “Previously all the goals have been conceptual.”