November 28, 2023
HIV work earns Aspin research medal
A leading health researcher says HIV is the hidden pandemic with Māori disproportionately affected.
Victoria Unversity Te Herenga Waka deputy professor Clive Aspin is this year’s winner of the Royal Society Te Apārangi Te Rangi Hiroa Medal for his work, including on sexuality, HIV Aids and suicide prevention.
He says 40 years after the virus emerged it still affects 40 million people worldwide and treatment options are constrained by stigma and discrimination.
That’s why it’s important to keep up awareness of the threat and encourage Maori to get help through community organisations like Toitu Te Ao. (LINK:https://www.toituteao.org)
“We’re very lucky in New Zealand because we’ve got these amazing retrovirals, these amazing treatments that cane make HIV undetectable in your body if you become HIV positive so people who get those drugs continue to live a ling life, the same as everyone else, but a lot of people don’t get access to those drugs because they don’t realise they’ve become HIV positive and it becomes an equity issue,” Dr Aspin says.
In Aotearoa HIV is most often picked up by people travelling overseas, excepet for Maori women, who are more likely than non-Maori to have acquired it in this country ,