3801 (2024). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health

3801 (2024). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister of Health: What progress has been made in the last quarter (October to December 2023) to ‘Reduce HIV transmission and ensure people maintain treatment’ under Outcome 3: New Zealanders have fewer cancers, as part of the New Zealand Cancer Action Plan 2019 – 2029?

Hon Dr Shane Reti: I am advised that progress has continued implementing the National HIV Action Plan (the Plan) for Aotearoa New Zealand 2023-2030. During October – December 2023, the focus has been on community HIV service providers delivering: - Scaled up peer and community-led programmes and resources that focus on connecting and empowering people living with HIV. - Programmes that increase knowledge and access to combination prevention for communities that have migrated from high HIV prevalence countries. - Scaled up innovative HIV testing which has involved increasing access to both HIV and STI rapid testing as well as providing workforce training to conduct testing. Clinical guidance has also been developed for combination prevention for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) prescribing in primary care.