NZAF works to promote combination HIV prevention, and to protect and promote the health and rights of all people living with HIV.

We do this by developing policy, influencing decisionmakers, and forming strategic partnerships to advance our work in ending new HIV transmissions. We work with legislators, researchers, policymakers, and service providers to help them to understand and address the needs of our communities.

We have been advocating for LGBTI communities and for people living with HIV from the very beginning of the epidemic, and the organisation’s inception in 1985. Our focus is on responding to key issues in HIV policy and advocacy as and when they come up, while mapping out future challenges and opportunities.

Our work focusses on a broad range of issues as they impact on both the prevention of HIV and other STIs, as well as care and support for people living with HIV, including:

• Making combination HIV prevention (condoms, lube, PrEP and U=U) available to those who need it in our communities in our efforts to end new HIV transmissions.
• Advocating for research on combination HIV prevention to measure current knowledge, use, intention to use, and other behavioural data.
• Ensuring access to HIV education, testing and treatment, and securing access to a wider variety of HIV testing services. Collaborating with ASHM and DHB sexual health clinicians to develop training and resources to improve PrEP knowledge among GPs.
• Advocating for and shaping national strategy, policy and guidance on preventing HIV transmission, and ensuring goals and targets are met in local, national, regional and international strategies.
• Monitoring and influencing immigration and insurance policy and challenging unfair policy decisions which could have a negative impact on the health of people living with HIV, and ensuring all people living with HIV (no matter their visa status) know that they are entitled to treatment within New Zealand.
• Providing leadership in health workforce development and research-based policy development to ensure the needs of our communities are met.
• Influencing legal and policy developments, police and prosecutor practice and media narrative on the criminalisation of HIV transmission and the treatment of PLHIV.

If you have any questions about NZAF’s policy and advocacy work, would like to feed into our work or have policy issues which you think should be brought to our attention, please contact our Policy and Science Team at [email protected]

NZAF prepares a range of resources as part of our HIV and public health policy work to inform the work that we do. These resources include policy position statements, background briefings and issues papers.

Our Position Statements outline NZAF’s strategic position on central aspects of our Strategic Plan and can be accessed here.

In 2020 we developed a Briefing to the Incoming Parliament. The briefing identifies three priorities to focus efforts to drive down HIV incidence and respond to resurgent STI epidemics.

We have also highlighted immediate actions that can happen now to scale up combination HIV prevention in Aotearoa New Zealand.

We regularly advocate on issues relating to HIV or issues pertinent to our communities through submissions to local councils, government departments, PHARMAC, and MedSafe to name a few. The issues we submit on relate to HIV and STI prevention, support for people living with HIV, and the health and wellbeing of communities affected by HIV. In recent years we have seen the removal of the CD4 threshold for treatment access for people living with HIV, applying for PrEP to be publicly funded by PHARMAC, and the funding of a wider range of condoms.

Here are some of our recent submissions:

• Feedback to PHARMAC on the funding of a wider range of funded condoms, and the decision to not have a funded lubricant
• Feedback to PHARMAC on widening eligibility for nPEP
• Feedback to PHARMAC on the widening of PrEP prescriber eligibility, and proposal of further changes
• Application to PHARMAC to fund TAF
• Feedback to PHARMAC on the proposed competing of the INSTI market for the treatment of HIV
• Advice to Medsafe Medicines Classification Committee's 63rd meeting on the regulation of Amyl Nitrates (poppers)
• Feedback to Medsafe Medicines Classification Committee on the decision to regulate Amyl Nitrates (poppers)
• Submission to Ministry of Health/MBIE Working Group on suggested changes to immigration health requirements for people living with HIV