In the first half of 2004 the Foundation successfully negotiated a deal for Pharmac, the Government’s medicines funding agency (which in this case includes condoms), to supply the NZAF Gay Men’s Health programme with 300,000 condoms per year for distribution to MSM. The programme began in May 2004, supplying gay sex-on-site venues, gay bars, nightclubs, dance parties, gay community events and other NZAF health promotion initiatives. By the end of last year 215,848 condoms had been distributed, approximately half under the subsidised scheme. The balance was paid for by the Foundation.
In addition, 20,000 individual sachets of sexual lubricant were also distributed. Jenkin says the lower number of lube sachets is because NZAF does not supply sex on site venues with lube, they purchase their own. The NZAF lube has mostly been included in the popular safe sex packs Gay Men’s Health staff give out at events and in bars.
“It’s great to think there’s been so much safe sex going on,” says Jenkin, “But we still need to do better. New HIV diagnoses among MSM are rising faster than ever before. In the first half of 2005 we were averaging one new HIV diagnosis among MSM every four days, the majority of those in Auckland. If that has continued for the second half of the year, 2005 could well set an unenviable record for the most new HIV diagnoses among MSM in one year since the epidemic began in New Zealand.”
Official HIV statistics for all of 2005 are expected to be analysed and ready for publication by late February.
“Our surveys,” Jenkin says, “and the sheer amount of condoms distributed, indicate most men are still using condoms for anal sex, but, in a community like ours, it only takes a small slippage in the level of commitment to condoms to produce a dramatic rise in new HIV infections.
“It would be great if, in six months time, we could report an even bigger uptake of condoms with a corresponding reduction in the rate of new HIV diagnoses.”
