Australia: Controversial HIV testing bill in South Australia faces backlash from experts

Alarm raised over proposed HIV testing laws in South Australia

South Australia is moving to bring in laws forcing people to be tested for HIV despite a report in New South Wales describing similar legislation as ineffective and unneeded.

Health organisation Thorne Harbour Health has expressed strong opposition to the South Australian Government’s proposed Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) (Blood Testing) Amendment Bill 2024, citing concerns over its scientific validity, potential to spread disinformation, and its exacerbation of stigma toward people living with blood-borne viruses (BBVs).

The bill intends to protect frontline emergency services workers by mandating blood testing of individuals who spit at or bite them. Yet, expert bodies such as the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine have firmly stated that mandatory testing for BBVs is not an effective or evidence-based approach to public health.

“We support policies that ensure a safe workplace for all workers, including emergency services personnel. However, this bill is not an evidence-based approach to achieving that goal. It creates unnecessary anxiety for workers and does nothing to improve public health outcomes,” said Thorne Harbour Health Vice President and Secretary of the HIV Justice Network, Paul Kidd.

“The bill, as drafted, does not consider the actual risk of transmission,” said Kidd.

Throne Harbour Health argues that Testing should only be permitted where there is risk of transmission. HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C cannot be transmitted through saliva, meaning spitting does not pose a risk.

They also advocate that testing should only be ordered within 72 hours of alleged exposure, as this is the window in which prophylactic interventions (such as post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP) can prevent transmission. They say the proposed six-month time frame is ineffective and misleading.

They also highlight that emergency service workers should undergo immediate medical treatment if a risk is identified, rather than waiting for mandatory test results that may be misleading or delayed.

“People living with HIV continue to face stigma across many aspects of our lives, including in our interactions with police. It’s vital that emergency workers understand how HIV is transmitted and when they are at risk of transmission. There have been zero recorded cases of HIV transmission to an on-duty police officer in Australia,” said President of Positive Life SA, Kath Leane.

“By promoting inaccurate information about how BBVs are transmitted, this legislation does more harm than good. Not only does it put emergency workers at risk of misunderstanding real threats, but it also increases discrimination against people living with HIV,” said Leane.

Similar legislation has been passed in New South Wales and Western Australia. Last month the New South Wales Ombudsman questioned if the laws truly served the purpose they were designed for.

The NSW Ombudsman report monitoring the operation and administration of the Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021, tabled in Parliament on 5 February, found the Act does not have “clear and measurable benefits” for workers.

The report recommends the NSW Government consider whether the Act “should be continued at all”. The report also found that the Act is mostly being used in situations where there is no risk of blood-borne transmission to a frontline worker.

Similar legislation was introduced in Western Australia by both the Barnett Liberal and McGowan Labor governments similarly against the recommendations of experts in the field of HIV. There were suggestions in 2019 that WA’s mandatory disease testing laws were being overused.

OUTinPerth recently approached both the Labor party and the Liberal party and asked if they still supported the Western Australian laws. We are waiting for a response.

Canada: Human Rights groups denounce the use of anti-spit masks

Canada: The anti-spit mask, a controversial tool

Translated from French with Deepl.com – Scroll down for original article

Human rights groups that have set up the Tracking (In)Justice project are denouncing the use of the anti-spit mask, which police forces such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) regard as an ‘essential’ tool.

The mask, which is placed over the head of an arrestee who wants to spit or bite police officers, is causing controversy. The mask has been used during certain interventions after which the arrested person died, although no link has been formally established between the use of the mask and the person’s death.

A useful and used tool

The Calgary Police Service uses the anti-spit mask.

According to its data (New Window), this tool was used 70 times in 2022 and 2023, more often than pepper spray, but less often than conducted energy weapons.

Members of the RCMP also use them, but their use is not systematically recorded, because the RCMP considers the mask to be a restraint device in the same way as handcuffs,’ she said in an email to Radio-Canada.

According to the RCMP, the mask prevents biological contamination from diseases and infections such as hepatitis and HIV. It says that this type of injury is the most frequently mentioned by officers.

A controversy

Alexander McClelland, Associate Professor at the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University in Ottawa, believes that the personal protection argument does not hold water.

We don’t know of many diseases that are transmitted solely by saliva. For example, HIV and hepatitis C are not transmitted by saliva. COVID-19 is an airborne disease. So you need a mask to prevent it, not a mesh fabric,’ says the member of Tracking (In)Justice, which brings together several organisations and collects data on the application of the law and criminal law.

Alexander McClelland believes that the mask is a dehumanising tool that serves no purpose other than to prevent a person from spitting, which could be avoided by de-escalation measures.

A dangerous tool?

I know that there have been about nine cases in Canada [between 2014 and 2022] where people have died after using balaclavas,’ says Alexander McClelland. They are used when a person is forcibly immobilised on the ground, a bonnet is applied and they are sprayed with pepper spray.

The RCMP is clear on this point: the bonnet must not be used to control a prisoner. To this end, it cites studies showing that the use of the mask, according to the manufacturer’s instructions, is safe.

However, in an internal memo (New Window), Alberta Health says the following: [Anti-choking] bonnets interfere with airway assessment and management and present a considerable risk, for example if the patient vomits or chokes. Agitation is also increased by interference with the patient’s vision.

Supervision measures

Masks are safe if staff follow a precise protocol.

They are supposed to be used in a context where no other type of force is applied and when the person [to whom the bonnet is applied] is seated and able to breathe effectively and normally,’ says Alexander McClelland.

When other types of force are applied, such as ground restraint, or if someone is handcuffed, or if someone is in a heightened state of anxiety because they are being held by the police, they may not be able to breathe effectively,’ he adds.

What’s more, the measures surrounding the use of this bonnet vary from one police force to another.

In the RCMP, the bonnet is considered a restraint device. It is therefore not subject to the same requirements as tools that fall into the Intervention Options category, which includes pepper spray, for which there are strict training and recertification requirements.

Prohibited use

In Australia, the anti-spit mask has been abolished.

Alexander McClelland explains that Australia made this decision following the death of a man in custody. It’s because [the masks] can be damaging and cause a lot of harm to people who are arrested or incarcerated,’ says McClelland.

For its part, the RCMP says it has no intention of stopping using them, but that if objective medical evidence shows the tool to be dangerous, it will take it into account.

Le masque anti-crachat, un outil controversé

Des groupes de défense des droits de la personne qui ont créé le projet Tracking (In)Justice dénoncent l’utilisation du masque anti-crachat, alors que les corps de police tels que la Gendarmerie royale du Canada (GRC) le perçoivent comme un outil « essentiel ».

Ce masque, qui est mis sur la tête d’une personne en état d’arrestation qui veut cracher ou mordre les policiers, suscite la controverse. Le masque a été utilisé durant certaines interventions après lesquelles la personne arrêtée est morte,bien qu’aucun lien n’ait été formellement établi entre l’utilisation du masque et la mort de la personne.

Un outil utile et utilisé

Le service de police de Calgary a recours au masque anti-crachat.

Selon ses données (Nouvelle fenêtre) (en anglais), cet outil a été employé 70 fois en 2022 et en 2023, soit plus souvent que les aérosols capsiques (gaz poivre), mais moins que les armes à impulsion électrique.

Les membres de la GRC y ont aussi recours, mais son usage n’est pas systématiquement répertorié, car elle considère le masque comme un dispositif de contrainte, au même titre que des menottes, dit-elle dans un courriel envoyé à Radio-Canada

Selon la GRC, le masque permet d’éviter la contamination biologique de maladies et d’infections comme des hépatites et le VIH. Elle affirme que ce type de blessures est le plus fréquemment mentionné par les agents.

Une polémique

Le professeur agrégé de l’Institut de criminologie et de justice criminelle à l’Université Carleton à Ottawa Alexander McClelland estime que l’argument de la protection individuelle ne tient pas la route.

Nous ne connaissons pas beaucoup de maladies qui se transmettent uniquement par la salive. Par exemple, le VIH et l’hépatite C ne se transmettent pas par la salive. La COVID-19 est une maladie qui se transmet par l’air. Il faut donc un masque pour l’éviter, pas un tissu en maille, affirme le membre de Tracking (In)Justice, qui regroupe plusieurs organisations et qui collecte des données sur l’application de la loi et du droit pénal.

Alexander McClelland juge que le masque est un outil déshumanisant, qui n’a d’autre utilité que d’empêcher une personne d’envoyer des crachats, ce qui pourrait être évité par des mesures de désescalade.

Un outil dangereux?

Je sais qu’il y a eu environ neuf cas au Canada [entre 2014 et 2022] où des personnes sont mortes après l’utilisation de cagoules, affirme Alexander McClelland. Elles sont utilisées lorsqu’une personne est immobilisée de force sur le sol, qu’on lui applique une cagoule et qu’elle est aspergée de gaz poivré.

Or, la GRC est claire sur ce point : la cagoule ne doit pas servir à contrôler un prisonnier. À cet effet, elle cite des études qui démontrent que l’usage du masque, selon les indications du fabricant, est sécuritaire.

Toutefois, dans une note interne (Nouvelle fenêtre) (en anglais), Service de santé Alberta dit ceci : Les cagoules [anti-crachat] gênent l’évaluation et la gestion des voies respiratoires et présentent un risque considérable, par exemple si le patient vomit ou s’étouffe. L’agitation est aussi accrue par l’interférence avec la vision du patient.

Des mesures d’encadrement

Le masque est sécuritaire, si les agents suivent un protocole précis.

Ils sont censés être utilisés dans un contexte où aucun autre type de force n’est appliqué et lorsque la personne [à qui on enfile la cagoule] est assise et capable de respirer efficacement et normalement, assure Alexander McClelland.

Lorsqu’on applique d’autres types de force, comme la contrainte au sol, ou si quelqu’un est menotté, ou si quelqu’un est dans un état d’anxiété accru parce qu’il est retenu par la police, il peut ne pas être en mesure de respirer efficacement, ajoute-t-il.

De plus, les mesures entourant l’usage de cette cagoule varient selon les corps policiers.

À la GRC, la cagoule est considérée comme un dispositif de contrainte. Elle n’est donc pas soumise aux mêmes exigences que les outils qui entrent dans la catégorie Options d’intervention, dont fait partie l’aérosol capsique, pour laquelle il y a des exigences strictes en matière de formation et de recertification.

Un emploi proscrit

En Australie, le masque anti-crachat a été aboli.

Alexander McClelland explique que ce pays a fait ce choix à la suite du décès d’un homme en détention. C’est parce que [les masques] peuvent être dommageables et causer beaucoup de tort aux personnes arrêtées ou incarcérées, affirme le spécialiste.

De son côté, la GRC déclare qu’elle n’a pas l’intention d’arrêter de l’utiliser, mais que, si des preuves médicales objectives démontrent la dangerosité de l’outil, elle va en tenir compte.

US: American Academy of Pediatrics clarifies breastfeeding guidelines for people with HIV

New guidelines clear the way for HIV-positive people to breastfeed

Parents with HIV who want to breastfeed are now able to — with the blessing of their pediatrician — after a game-changing report was released this spring.

The 11-page report, “Infant Feeding for Persons Living With and at Risk for HIV in the United States: Clinical Report” was published in the medical journal Pediatrics in May by Drs. Lisa Abuogi and Christiana Smith, both pediatricians with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and Dr. Lawrence Noble, a pediatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics for the first time is fully supporting breastfeeding for women and other parents with HIV who are on treatment and virally suppressed,” said Dr. Abuogi in a recent virtual interview. “And that’s a result of increasing research showing that it can be done safely and improving antiretroviral regimens that improve the chances of staying virally suppressed.”

She added: “I think it opens up having the choice and having the ability to be supported to do that, which for decades they have not had. So it’s a pretty big sea change that’s happening in the field of HIV.”

The change came as welcome news to Ci Ci Covin, an HIV-positive mother who, because of her status, was devastated not to be allowed to breastfeed her son, Zion, now a teenager. She did, however, breastfeed her 3-year-old daughter Zuri secretively, with the support of clandestine providers who promised not to turn her in to child protective services for planning to breastfeed while living with HIV, something women in other countries have long been able to do.

Now that it doesn’t have to be done in secret, she said, the new guidelines brought a wave of relief.

“It felt like a breath that I was finally able to exhale on,” she said, “that I had been holding in for so many years.”

Breastfeeding with HIV has traveled a long road to acceptance. In 1985, the American Association of Pediatrics recommended parents who were HIV-positive not breastfeed, because of the slim chance of transmission of the infection via the breast milk to the baby. Those choosing to disregard the guidelines could be reported to state child protective agencies.

Others didn’t see the risk in the same way — in some African countries for example, babies were breastfeeding from HIV-positive parents on antiretroviral drugs whose load was so low as to be undetectable while also receiving prophylaxis drugs that blocked the transmission of the virus to the baby; studies there were finding no HIV transmission.

But the U.S. stood fast on its ban — until January 2023, when the National Institutes of Health released a paper “Update to Clinical Guidelines for Infant Feeding Supports Shared Decision Making: Clarifying Breastfeeding Guidance for People with HIV.”

“Clinicians should support the choices of people with HIV to breastfeed (if they are virally suppressed) or to formula/replacement feed,” the paper stated, adding: “It is inappropriate to engage child protective services (CPS) or similar services in response to infant feeding choices of [people with HIV].”

The NIH influenced the Department of Health and Human Services, which that year relaxed its own guidelines against restricting HIV-positive people from breastfeeding, but the HHS has a smaller audience, and it’s the American Association of Pediatrics from whom pediatricians specializing in labor and delivery take their cues, not HHS.

The paper Abuogi and her co-researchers published about a year and a half later was what made the change in the AAP guidelines. Their report, she said, consisted less of original research on the topic and more of a distillation of research. “We review all of the literature, the history, and the latest research to inform the guidelines,” she said.

According to the paper, health care professionals should plan to talk with patients who want to breastfeed their child, and when they do, they should explore the parents’ reasoning, suggest possible alternatives that allow a bond with the infant, and validate the parent’s role, regardless of how the infant will be fed. The paper also recommends that parents know the risk of HIV transmission — which is about 1 percent or less — and are aware that antiretroviral drugs suppress the chance of transmission, but don’t completely eliminate the risk.

“Breastfeeding should be supported for people with HIV who strongly desire to breastfeed after comprehensive counseling,” the paper recommends, “if all of the following criteria are met: (anti-retroviral therapy) was initiated early in or before pregnancy; there is evidence of sustained viral suppression in the parent; the parent demonstrates a commitment to consistently taking their own (anti-retroviral drugs) and to giving infant (anti-retroviral) prophylaxis; and the parent has continuous access (to those drugs).”

The new guidelines are being made widely known through email blasts, the AAP’s podcast, and social media posts to the country’s 39,000 pediatricians who specialize in labor and delivery, about 2,000 of whom practice in Colorado, according to Dr. Aguobi.

Ci Ci Covin, 36, a mother of two who has a bachelor’s and master’s degrees, now lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her partner, son, and daughter. She had been diagnosed with HIV in her early 20s — she said she got the virus having unprotected sex with men growing up in rural Georgia. She didn’t breastfeed her son because she had the virus, and was told she should be happy to give birth at all, given her status.

Her first-born child, Zion, was born premature and spent nine days in the NICU, during which time Covin stayed in a nearby Ronald McDonald House. One day, she recalled, “I stood in that shower with my breasts full of milk and in pain and just watched it all just waste down the drain, knowing that HIV was the only thing that was causing that right now. It was so painful.”

She spiraled into post-partum depression, “beating myself up again for this diagnosis because that was what was stopping me from being able to feed my child … all of my parental autonomy had been taken away from me. That was a rough time.”

Guidelines shared with her by her health care provider kept her from breastfeeding. Over the next few years, she began hearing that women who were living with HIV were breastfeeding in some African countries. About a decade later, she found a new partner and became pregnant again, this time with a baby girl she’d call Zuri, now 3 years old. This time, she wanted things to be different. She had befriended an HIV-positive mother in Virginia for whom things were different: Her new friend Heather’s health care provider had asked her how she wanted to feed her newborn, rather than telling her that her choice was limited so as not to include breastfeeding — a shocking statement to Ci Ci’s ears.

Heather’s disclosure made Covin think she could do the same, so she ran the possibility past her provider. She was shocked by what she was told: There was “no provider in America who would work with me if that’s what I wanted to do,” Coving explained, her voice quivering with emotion.

“And she told me that if that was something that I wanted to do, then I was going to have to be quiet about it because their facility is known to call child protective services on parents who breastfeed while living with HIV.”

The threat left her stunned. “I’m only six weeks pregnant; we don’t even know if this baby’s going to stick yet, and I’m being threatened by CPS … which really put a fork in that relationship that I had built with that provider.”

With her friend Heather’s help, Covin found a new health care team in Philadelphia consisting of an OB-GYN, a social worker, a high-risk nurse, and a pediatrician — all of whom felt the benefits of breastfeeding with HIV outweighed the slim risk of transmission. In the small community of HIV-positive parents, this team was known through whispers as the ones to go to if you had HIV and wanted to breastfeed without getting reported to child protective services.

Initially, she was undecided on breastfeeding the daughter she was expecting.

“Some days I would go in there and say, ‘Yes, I’m doing it.’ Then other days I’d be like, ‘No I’m not doing this.’ And they did that tango with me, just informing me of all of the things, the research, what they’ve seen in previous patients and children. It was awesome. I had options. I could choose what life was going to look like for me and my baby moving forward.”

Under the new provider’s care, Covin gave birth to Zuri, then spent the next seven months breastfeeding her daughter, who also received prophylactic medications during and after that time period.

“It felt beautiful. It felt so natural. I couldn’t believe that it was happening, that I was able to do it in front of people in scrubs,” she said, rather than hiding it from them.

Per protocol, Covin and Zuri both took medications to lower the transmission risk.

“We started on one type of treatment for the first four weeks after she was born, and then we switched into another treatment that had less medication in it, less types of drugs,” she said. “We did that for the length of time that we breastfed plus a month afterwards,” she said, adding that both children are now thriving and doing well and that neither has the virus.

Covin now works as a senior manager of community programming with The Well Project in Philadelphia (a nonprofit organization that serves women living with HIV and those vulnerable to it across the gender spectrum). She is one of a small subset of HIV-positive parents who want to breastfeed — estimated to be about 5,000 large annually nationwide — who are potentially impacted by the AAP’s new guidelines. The new rules mean that people like Covin won’t have to go to the trouble of finding a doctor breaking guidelines to be supportive of women breastfeeding while living with HIV; instead, doctors will just start openly presenting doing so as a legitimate option.

“The 5,000 number is the number of women living with HIV that we think become pregnant annually in the United States, and in Colorado, that number is probably closer to 50 or 60,” said Dr. Abuogi, who added that many are women of color. But the number and background of the people impacted isn’t the point.

“All women and mothers want to have the full range of choices and options to make the best infant feeding decisions for their children,” she said.

Of the new guidelines, she said they could make a difference in the parenting experience. “This gives these women that option if they’re able to be on their treatment and doing well.”

US: New report from the Williams Institute examines the enforcement of Indiana’s HIV-related criminal donation laws

Enforcement of HIV Criminalization in Indiana: Donation Laws

The Williams Institute analyzed data from the Indiana courts regarding individuals arrested and prosecuted for an HIV-related donation crime in that state. Indiana has six laws criminalizing people living with HIV (PLWH), spanning the criminal code and public health code. This report—one in a series examining HIV criminalization in Indiana—analyzes the enforcement of two laws that criminalize the donation of blood, plasma, and semen for artificial insemination if the person knows they have HIV:

  • Indiana Criminal Code § 35-45-21-1 Transferring Contaminated Body Fluids (enacted in 1988)
  • Indiana Health Code § 16-41-14-17 Donation, Sale, or Transfer of HIV Infected Semen; penalties (enacted in 1989)

The data were obtained between January 2022 and March 2024 and cover enforcement of the laws between 2001 and 2023. We identified 18 unique individuals charged with 21 violations of the state’s criminal donation law related to HIV, resulting in 18 court cases. While other states have similar HIV-related criminal donation laws, Indiana had the greatest number of convictions under a donation law documented in a single state.

Key Findings

  • Indiana’s HIV-related donation crimes were created nearly four decades ago (1988 and 1989) before effective and easily accessible testing and treatment for HIV was available.
  • All 18 cases stemmed from an attempt to donate at a plasma center.
  • No cases (0) involved attempts to donate whole blood or semen.
  • No people (0) were charged under the provision of the code penalizing actual HIV transmission.
  • Marion County—home to Indianapolis, the state capital and largest city—was substantially overrepresented in arrests: it accounted for about 14% of the state’s population and 41% of PLWH in 2021 but nearly 80% of all donation-related arrests. Only three other counties had arrests.
  • Alleged violations of the donation laws regularly occurred between 2001 and 2018, with the most recent arrest happening in 2019 for an incident in 2018. On average, one court case was filed per year for an alleged violation of Indiana’s HIV blood donation law during this time period.
  • The demographic data reveal that:
    • The range for age at time of arrest was between 20 and 58 years old; the mean (average) age at time of arrest was 33 years old.
    • Men were 72% of people arrested while women were 28%.
    • Black people were nearly eight in ten (78%) of all people arrested. White people were the remainder (22%) of those arrested. However, Black people were only 38% of PLWH in Indiana in 2021 and just 10% of the state’s population. No other race/ethnicity group was represented among those arrested.
  • In total, 17 of the 18 people charged were found indigent and assigned a public defender.
  • More than four-fifths (89%) of people arrested were convicted of at least one HIV-related crime.
  • The Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) devoted resources to determining whether a possible crime was committed—a public health investigator (PHI) routinely referred cases to law enforcement and provided them with personal HIV information in accordance with IDOH policy at the time.
  • • The criminal law has not been enforced since the last court case was filed in 2019, suggesting a recent decline in the use of Indiana’s HIV-related donation crime laws.

To our knowledge, this report is the first comprehensive look at the enforcement of HIV criminal donation laws in a single U.S. state, and it demonstrates one of the highest levels of enforcement observed in any state to date.

This report found that people who know they have HIV can, and have, been prosecuted under Indiana’s HIV criminalization donation laws for acts that pose no HIV transmission risk. Because of universal screening for HIV antibodies, donated blood, plasma, and semen are now safe from HIV for recipients. Moreover, plasma—which represented 100% of attempted donations in this study—is heat treated, which inactivates all bloodborne pathogens, including HIV. There has not been a reported case of HIV transmission from plasma donation in nearly 40 years. Yet, as recently as 2019, Indiana arrested, prosecuted, and convicted a person for attempting to donate at a plasma center in the state.

Further, HIV criminalization laws could undermine the state’s efforts to work cooperatively with the communities most impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In recent years, there has been growing consensus among public health and medical experts that ending the HIV epidemic requires modernizing a state’s HIV criminal laws to reflect what is known about HIV science today. Indiana’s own statewide plan to end the HIV epidemic in the state by 2030, called Zero is Possible, includes criminal law modernization as one of the current approaches and priorities. The plan echoes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the White House’s Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) position on HIV-specific criminal laws, both of which call on states to modernize their HIV criminal laws to reflect advances in treatment and what we know today about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted.

Download the full report

WHO publishes new policy guidelines describing the role of HIV viral suppression on stopping HIV transmission

New WHO guidance on HIV viral suppression and scientific updates released at IAS 2023

The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing new scientific and normative guidance on HIV at the 12thInternational IAS (the International AIDS Society) Conference on HIV Science.

New WHO guidance and an accompanying Lancet systematic review released today describe the role of HIV viral suppression and undetectable levels of virus in both improving individual health and halting onward HIV transmission. The guidance describes key HIV viral load thresholds and the approaches to measure levels of virus against these thresholds; for example, people living with HIV who achieve an undetectable level of virus by consistent use of antiretroviral therapy, do not transmit HIV to their sexual partner(s) and are at low risk of transmitting HIV vertically to their children. The evidence also indicates that there is negligible, or almost zero, risk of transmitting HIV when a person has a HIV viral load measurement of less than or equal to 1000 copies per mL, also commonly referred to as having a suppressed viral load.

Antiretroviral therapy continues to transform the lives of people living with HIV. People living with HIV who are diagnosed and treated early, and take their medication as prescribed, can expect to have the same health and life expectancy as their HIV-negative counterparts.

“For more than 20 years, countries all over the world have relied on WHO’s evidence-based guidelines to prevent, test for and treat HIV infection,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “The new guidelines we are publishing today will help countries to use powerful tools have the potential to transform the lives of millions of people living with or at risk of HIV.”

At the end of 2022, 29.8 million of the 39 million people living with HIV were taking antiretroviral treatment (which means 76% of all people living with HIV) with almost three-quarters of them (71%) living with suppressed HIV. This means that for those virally suppressed their health is well protected and they are not at risk of transmitting HIV to other people. While this is a very positive progress for adults living with HIV, viral load suppression in children living with HIV is only 46% – a reality that needs urgent attention.

Coming soon:
HIV Justice Live! Episode 5: Bringing Science to Justice

Five years ago, twenty of the world’s leading HIV scientists published the ‘Expert Consensus Statement on the Science of HIV in the Context of Criminal Law’ to address the misuse of HIV science in punitive laws and prosecutions against people living with HIV for acts related to sexual activity, biting, or spitting.

More than 70 scientists from 46 countries endorsed the Expert Consensus Statement prior to its publication in the Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS). The Statement was launched on 25th July 2018 at AIDS 2018, with the press conference generating global media coverage.

Building upon our initial 2020 scoping report, we recently undertook further extensive research to examine the impact of the Expert Consensus Statement in the five years since its publication.

On 25th July 2023 – exactly five years to the day of the original launch – we will not only be presenting our findings at the 12th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2023), we will also be launching the five-year impact report during our live webshow, HIV Justice Live!

Hosted by HJN’s Executive Director, Edwin J Bernard, the show will include a discussion with the report’s lead author, HJN’s Senior Policy Analyst Alison Symington, as well as interviews with Malawian judge Zione Ntaba, Taiwan activist Fletcher Chui, and SALC lawyer Tambudzai Gonese-Manjonjo on the Statement’s impact.

We’ll also hear from some of the Expert Consensus Statement’s authors, including Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Salim S Abdool Karim, Linda-Gail Bekker, Chris Beyrer, Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Benjamin Young, and Peter Godfrey-Faussett.

Ugandan lawyer and HJN Supervisory Board member Immaculate Owomugisha will also be joining us live from the IAS 2023 conference in Brisbane, Australia where she is serving as a rapporteur, to discuss the Statement’s legacy and relevance today.

There will be opportunities to let us know the impact the Expert Consensus Statement has had in your advocacy and to ask questions live, so please save the date and time.

HIV Justice Live! Episode 5: Bringing Science to Justice will be live on our Facebook and YouTube pages on Tuesday 25th July at 3pm CEST (click here for your local time).

 

When law and science part ways: the criminalization of breastfeeding by women living with HIV

The HIV Justice Network (HJN) has been monitoring a disturbing phenomenon — at least 12 women living with HIV have faced criminal prosecution in relation to breastfeeding or comfort nursing.  

In addition, women living with HIV have been threatened with punitive public health processes and child protection interventions for breastfeeding their children in multiple countries.

To bring this important issue to the attention of women’s health experts and advocates, HJN worked with our HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE partners to write a paper for a Special Collection on Women’s Health and HIV for the peer-reviewed, open access journal Therapeutic Advances in Infectious Diseases.     

In “When law and science part ways: the criminalization of breastfeeding by women living with HIV,” published last week, Alison Symington (HJN’s Senior Policy Analyst), Nyasha Chingore-Munazvo (Programmes Lead, AIDS and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa) and Svitlana Moroz (Chair of the Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS) place the criminalisation of women with HIV for breastfeeding within the context of current medical recommendations and cultural views of breastfeeding. They review the criminal cases against women living with HIV for breastfeeding around the globe, examine the injustice of these prosecutions, and provide recommendations for decriminalisation.

This Special Collection includes papers addressing a wide range of health issues impacting women with HIV. According to lead author Alison Symington, “We felt it was important to submit a paper on breastfeeding and HIV criminalisation because so few people are aware of these horrible cases. Healthcare providers have an important role to play in protecting women from punitive actions and providing them with information and support so that they can make the best decisions for themselves and their children.”

To make the paper even more widely accessible, HJN has provided translations into French, Russian and Spanish.

It is HJN’s aim to collaborate with advocates, researchers, service providers, organisations and community members around the world to raise awareness and prevent further unjust prosecutions against women living with HIV who breastfeed or comfort nurse. We are therefore grateful to both the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and the Robert Carr Fund for their financial support for this work.

Further resources

Mwayi’s Story is a short film about courage, and about women standing up for their rights. The film is based on a real case in Malawi and the subsequent successful advocacy to prevent an HIV criminalisation statute being passed. The full story of the woman who was prosecuted for briefly breastfeeding another woman’s baby is told in an HJN feature, It Takes More Than A Village to End HIV Criminalisation, by Sally Cameron, based on a report by Peter Gwazayani, Edna Tembo and Charity Mkona.

 

 

Mwayi’s Story: a short film about courage,
women’s rights, and HIV justice

Today we are delighted to share with the world a new short film, Mwayi’s Story, produced by the HIV Justice Network on behalf of HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE.

Mwayi’s Story is a story about courage, and about women standing up for their rights. The film is based on the story of a woman in Malawi who was prosecuted for briefly breastfeeding another woman’s baby and the subsequent successful advocacy in Malawi to prevent an HIV criminalisation statute being passed.

Ultimately, Mwayi’s Story is about HIV justice!

We wanted to produce a film that was authentic to the lived experience of an HIV criminalisation survivor but without making her go through the trauma of having to relive the experience by telling her story again.

HJN’s video, visuals and webshows consultant, Nicholas Feustel, who produced and directed the film, said: “Since this story is primarily about mothers and children, we decided to produce the film in the style of an illustrated children’s storybook. We searched for a female illustrator working in sub-Saharan Africa and found the wonderful Phathu Nembilwi of Phathu Designs.

“For our narrator, we found Upile Chisala, a storyteller from Malawi known for her short and powerful poems.”

The script by HJN’s Senior Policy Analyst, Alison Symington, was written in consultation with our Supervisory Board member, Sarai Chisala-Tempelhoff, a Malawian human rights lawyer and legal researcher with over 15 years of experience in women’s access to justice.

We also worked with our HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE partners, Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) and AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), to ensure that the film was relevant to their ongoing advocacy in the region. In fact, Mwayi’s Story had its world premiere last week on Zambia’s Diamond TV, in anticipation of a verdict in a similar breastfeeding case.

The film will be shown in a number of forums over the next few months, including at AIDS 2022. It will soon be subtitled in French, Russian and Spanish, and we are also looking for partners to translate additional subtitles if they think the film can be useful in their own advocacy. If you’re interested you can get in touch with us at breastfeeding@hivjustice.net. We will send you the English subtitle file for translation. After you return the file to us, we will upload it to YouTube.

Mwayi’s Story is part of our ongoing work to end the criminalisation of women living with HIV for breastfeeding and comfort nursing, including our Breastfeeding Defence Toolkit. It is our goal to collaborate with advocates, researchers, service providers, organisations and community members around the world to raise awareness and prevent further unjust prosecutions against women living with HIV who breastfeed or comfort nurse. We are grateful to both the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and the Robert Carr Fund for their financial support for this work, and this film.