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Background Rising demand for sexual health services requires publicly funded service providers to ensure they are seeing members of priority populations. Sydney Sexual Health Centre in New South Wales, Australia developed an innovative online triage tool called 'Am I OK?' to support this goal. Methods This paper outlines the findings of a review that examined the use of the triage tool using retrospective cross-sectional analysis of 2017 data. Results The tool has achieved its purpose in ensuring that non-priority populations are referred to other services, consequently saving a significant amount (approximately 6months equivalent) of phone triage nurse time. Conclusion More work may need to be done to ensure that the tool is not creating a barrier for priority populations wishing to access the service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, there is limited research exploring the positive role men play in reducing HIV vulnerability or in the care and support of women living with HIV. This paper draws on interviews conducted with men and women in heterosexual HIV serodiscordant relationships as part of a longitudinal qualitative study exploring the social aspects of biomedicine among serodiscordant couples in two high HIV-burden areas in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Findings highlight that some HIV negative men in heterosexual relationships are resisting hegemonic masculine norms they see as harmful and are embracing caring masculine identities as they seek to support their HIV-positive wives. We suggest that understandings of masculinity in the context of the HIV epidemic in PNG should be broadened from simplistic discourses and representations of men as largely uncaring and violent to incorporate deeper understanding of how men can and are embracing caring masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polygyny is practised in vastly different cultural contexts, including in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The literature is contradictory, arguing that polygyny is either protective against HIV or a critical risk factor. Neither argument accounts for the diversity of polygyny. Even less attention has been paid to polygynous marriages with mixed HIV status (serodiscordance). This paper draws on a longitudinal study of the socio-cultural aspects of biomedicine among HIV serodiscordant couples and polygynous spouses in PNG. Findings revealed that polygynous marriages manifested in different constellations that need to be considered when seeking to understand variations of living with HIV and how prevention practices align with global biomedical messages. We argue that polygyny in PNG is too complex to be framed as either protective or risky in relation to HIV. Our findings highlight the importance of locally specific explorations of serodiscordant polygyny and HIV risk, to strengthen PNG's HIV prevention efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global ambition to "end AIDS" hinges on the universal uptake of HIV treatment-as-prevention and is undergirded by the assumption that biomedical technologies have consistent, predictable effects across highly diverse settings. But as anthropologists argue, such technologies are actively transformed by their local encounters, with various constitutive effects. How priority populations, such as HIV "serodiscordant" couples, negotiate treatment-as-prevention remains relatively unknown. We consider the "vibrant entanglements" that can shape couples' engagement with global biomedical technologies in the local context of Papua New Guinea (PNG)-a relatively uncharted biomedical landscape-and what we hope our current research in this setting will achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prevention of intimate partner transmission of HIV remains an important component of comprehensive HIV prevention strategies. In this paper we examine the sexual practices of people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Method: In 2008, a total of 374 HIV-positive people over the age of 16 and on ART for more than two weeks were recruited using a non-probability, convenience sampling methodology. This accounted for around 18% of adults on ART at the time. A further 36 people participated in semi-structured interviews. All interviews were thematically analysed using NVivo qualitative data analysis software. Results: Less than forty per cent (38%) of participants reported having had sexual intercourse in the six months prior to the survey. Marital status was by far the most important factor in determining sexual activity, but consistent condom use during vaginal intercourse with a regular partner was low. Only 46% reported consistent condom use during vaginal intercourse with a regular partner in the last six months, despite 77% of all participants reporting that consistent condom use can prevent HIV transmission. Consistent condom use was lowest amongst married couples and those in seroconcordant relationships. The vast majority (91.8%) of all participants with a regular heterosexual partner had disclosed their status to their partner. Qualitative data reinforced low rates of sexual activity and provided important insights into sexual abstinence and condom use. Conclusions: Considering the importance of intimate partner transmission of HIV, these results on the sexual practices of people with HIV on ART in PNG suggest that one-dimensional HIV prevention messages focussing solely on condom use fail to account for the current practices and needs of HIV-positive people, especially those who are married and know their partners' HIV status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study carried out in three secondary schools in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Seventy-three Year 12 students took part in eight gender-specific focus group discussions (three female and five male). Irrespective of gender, respondents predominately understood sex as being for the sole purpose of reproduction within marriage. When discussing sex and sexual relationships, young men used explicit language and referred specifically to sexual organs and activities. Young women did not. Less concerned for privacy, young men talked in public spaces and in groups with same-sex peers about sex and sexual expression, whereas young women discussed such matters one-on-one and in private. These gender differences provide useful entry points for developing appropriate sex and HIV education programmes involving young people in PNG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugees, as forced migrants, have suffered displacement under conditions not of their own choosing. In 2000 there were thought to be 22 million refugees of whom 6 million were HIV positive. While the New Zealand government has accepted a number of HIV positive refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, this hospitality is under threat due to negative public and political opinion. Epidemic conditions raise the social stakes attached to sexual exchanges, contagion becomes a major figure in social relationships and social production, and the fears of the contagious nature of those ‘just off the plane’ connect refugees to an equally deep-seated fear of racial miscegenation. Jacques Derrida’s notion of unconditional hospitality is a dream of a democracy which would have a cosmopolitan form. This means that one cannot decide in advance which refugees one might choose to resettle. This paper will use Derrida’s notion of unconditional hospitality to emphasise the fragility of HIV positive refugees’ position, caught between becoming newly made New Zealand subjects while at the same time having that subjecthood threatened. For Derrida, both ethics and politics demand both an action and a need for a thoughtful response (a questioning without limit). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined the prevalence of HIV infection among the Huli in the Southern Highlands in Papua New Guinea. It states that Huli people believed that close contact with women could result in men becoming sick or dying. It mentions that these people use eating coffee candy as a metaphor for engaging sex at funerals. It cites that the tradition of the Huli people of women attending the funerals and men burying the body was changed, which resulted to an increased sex at funerals and fueled the spread of HIV.

Background: People who inject drugs have experienced stigma around the world. Stigma has been found to have negative consequences for individuals in relation to health-service use, psychological wellbeing and physical health; and for populations in terms of health inequalities. Indonesia has experienced a rapid growth in injecting drug use and HIV and little is known about drivers of HIV risk among Indonesian women who inject drugs. The purpose of this paper is to describe and consider the multiple impacts of stigmatization of injecting drug use on injecting behaviors among women who inject drugs in Java.Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 19 women who inject drugs in Java. Mean age was 25 years, all but one was employed or at college. The interviewers were Indonesian women.Results: Significant stigma around women's drug use was reported from multiple sources in Java including family, friends and health services, resulting in feelings of shame. To avoid this stigma, most of the study participants hid their drug use. They lived away from family and had few friends outside their drug-injecting circle, resulting in isolation from mainstream society and harm-reduction services. Sharing of injecting equipment was restricted to a small, closed circle of trusted friends, thus limiting possible HIV transmission to a small number of injectors.Conclusions: The stigmatization of drug use, particularly of drug use by women, in Indonesia appears to have contributed to significant shame, isolation from mainstream society and high rates of sharing injecting equipment with a small group of trusted friends (particularly the partner). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]