Helpful information from The Australian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM) and Queensland Positive People (QPP) on HIV and Queensland-based services for people living with HIV (PLHIV), and patient referral information.
Queensland Positive People (QPP) is proud to announce the launch of “Disclosing your HIV status”, a guide for Queensland people living with HIV (PLHIV) to navigate legal issues and disclosure. The guide has been prepared by the HIV/AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) in partnership with QPP. The booklet aims to be used as an empowerment resource for PLHIV containing the most up-to-date and accurate information (as at June... Read more
Now that PrEP is available on the PBS, any GP can prescribe it! You don’t have to find an s100 prescriber or go to a sexual health clinic for your script. If you, your partner or a friend are interested in accessing PrEP, you can print the letter below and take to your usual GP so that they can be confident that they are prescribing PrEP correctly. This letter provides information on testing, how to prescribe PrEP and where to access PrEP.
My Health Record (MHR) is a centralised digital database housing an individual’s health information. The information can be accessed by the individual, selected healthcare providers and various other participants in the MHR system. From 16 July 2018, the MHR scheme will transition from being ‘opt-in’ to ‘opt-out’, meaning unless an individual chooses not to participate in the scheme, an MHR account will automatically be created for them.
The fact sheet, produced by the National Association of People living with HIV Australia, has produced this factsheet to inform us of the pros and cons of My Health Record and to let PLHIV in Australia know what this will mean for us.
QPP are always finding ways to upskill our staff in order to keep our service provision as up-to-date and high quality as possible. Earlier in November, QPP sent staff members to ASHM’s HIV/AIDS conference to learn about how the HIV sector is going in Australia, Asia and the Pacific region. Here is what a few of our staff had to say about the conference… Michael The ASHM symposium was little overwhelming, to be... Read more
Emotional and mental wellbeing is an important aspect of living well with HIV. There may be many aspects of our emotional and mental health make-up that all converge together (sometimes not at the same time) that will determine if we are having a good day, a good week, or a good life, such that we may be generally happy, well and content. Often too, our emotional and mental wellbeing may also be linked to physical... Read more
Image: ViiV Healthcare Dolutegravir used alone without other antiretrovirals was unable to keep viral load suppressed in some people who switched from a standard 3-drug combination regimen, according to research presented at the 2017 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) last month in Seattle. But evidence continues to show that dolutegravir plus a single other drug can work well as... Read more
Gilead Sciences announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an investigational, once-daily single tablet regimen containing bictegravir (BIC), a novel investigational integrase strand transfer inhibitor (formerly GS-9883), and emtricitabine (FTC)/tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults. BIC/FTC/TAF has demonstrated high... Read more
The Queensland Needle and Syringe Program (QNSP) aims to reduce the incidence of blood borne viruses (BBVs) and injecting related injuries and disease. The program supplies sterile injecting equipment to injecting drug users with the aim of ensuring users do not share or re-use needles, thus reducing the spread of BBVs within the wider community. Many people rely on needles, lancets or syringes to manage medical... Read more
The US FDA has approved a new once-daily version of Merck’s antiretroviral (ARV) Isentress, known as Isentress HD. Until now, Isentress (raltegravir) had been available only as a twice-daily treatment. Treatment with Isentress HD entails taking two 600 mg tablets once a day, compared with taking 400 mg of Isentress twice daily. The new drug has been approved for use in combination with other ARVs to treat HIV... Read more
