The archipelago of the Southern Pacific faces one of the HIV epidemics in more rapid growth in the world
Ten: This is the age of the younger person with HIV that Ssenieli Naitala has ever met.
When he founded the Survivor defense networks From Figi in 2013, that boy was not even born. Today it is one of the thousands of Fiji who have contracted the virus translated from the blood in recent years. Many of them are 19 or not and most have contracted the virus through the use of injected drugs.
“Young people are using drugs,” says Naitala in an interview with the BBC. Your organization offers support for prostitutes and drug addicts in the capital, Suva. “He was one of those young people who shared syringes on the streets during Covid.”
Over the past five years, the Figi, a small nation of the southern Pacific with a population of less than a million, has become the epicenter of one of the HIV epidemics in faster growth in the world.
In 2014, the country had less than 500 people who lived with HIV. In 2024, this number rose to about 5,900 – an increase of eleven times.
In the same year, the Figi recorded 1,583 new cases. That is, an increase of 13 times compared to the average of five years. Of these, 41 came from children 15 years or not, against only 11 in 2023.
These numbers brought the Minister of Health and Medical Services of the country to declare a outbreak for HIV in January. Last week, the Vice Minister of Health Penoni Ravunawa warned that the Figi could record more than 3,000 new cases of HIV by the end of 2025.
“This is a national crisis,” he said. “And he is not slowing down.”
The BBC spoke with several experts, supporters and workers at the forefront to understand the reasons behind this meteoric growth. Some stressed that as the awareness of HIV increases and decreases the stigma, more people have tried to perform tests.
At the same time, they stressed that many others remain invisible to official statistics – and that the real size of the problem is probably even greater than the record numbers suggest.
‘Blood sharing’
The HIV epidemic in the Figi is anchored in an increase in the consumption of drugs, insecure sex, the sharing of syringes and the practice known as “Bluetoothing“.
Also called “Hotspotting“This is a practice in which an injected drug user removes the blood after a dose and injects it into someone else, which can therefore repeat the process with a third part and so on.
Kalesi Volatabu, executive director of Figi Fiji without drugs of the NGOs, attended the scene. Last May, during one of its regular morning excursions through the capital, Suva, offering support and information to drug addicts on the streets, became a corner and found a group of seven or eight people collected.
“I saw the syringe with the blood, I was right in front of me,” he recalls. “This young woman had already asked and was removing the blood. And other girls, other adults, were already lined up to receive the same thing.”
“It’s not just the syringes they share, it’s blood.”
THE Bluetoothing It was also recorded in South Africa and Lesoto, two countries with some of HIV’s highest rates in the world. In the Figi, the practice has gained strength in recent years, according to Volatabu and Naitala.
One of the reasons for its popularity, they explain, is the lowest cost: several people can divide the value of a single dose and share it. Another is the practicality of needing only one syringe.
They are difficult to find in the Figi, where pharmacies, under police pressure, often require entering to sell them and where the Siringhe distribution programs are missing.
Although there is a growing acceptance for the implementation of programs that provide clean injection equipment for drug addicts in order to reduce the transmission of infections such as HIV, their application in a highly religious and conservative country has been demanding.
Volatabu says that there is a “drastic scarcity” of the syringe distribution points, which feeds dangerous practices such as the sharing of needles and BluetoothingAnd puts responsibility for NGOs to distribute syringes and condoms.
In August 2024, the Ministry of Health and Medical Services of Figi (Moh) recognized the Bluetoothing as one of the factors of the increase in HIV cases in the country. Another is the ChemsexWhen people use drugs, often methamphetamine, before and during sex.
In the Figi, unlike most countries, the “crystal” (crystalline methamphetamine) is consumed mainly intravenously.
Moh also identified that of the 1,093 new cases recorded in the first nine months of 2024, 223 – about 20% – resulting from the use of injected drugs.
‘Younger’
The Figi have become, in the last 15 years, one of the main points of metanfetamine trafficking in the Pacific. Much of this is due to its geographical position, between Eastern Asia and the Americas, some of the major producers in the world, Australia and New Zealand, the most expensive markets.
During this period, the drug also spread to local communities, becoming a crisis that, like HIV, has recently been declared “national emergency”.
And according to those who work on the front line, the users’ age is falling. “Let’s see younger and younger,” says Volatabu. “They are becoming more and more young.”
The latest national HIV statistics in the Figi indicate the use of drugs injected as a more common form of transmission, responsible for 48% of cases. Sexual transmission represents 47%, while the transmission of the mother to children during pregnancy and childbirth was the cause of most cases pediatric cases.
All BBC interviewees agree that the lack of education is a central factor in the epidemic. Volatabu and Naitala work to change this scenario – and Naitala states that, as the dangers of HIV, the Bluetoothing He lost popularity.
More people are testing and looking for a treatment, which has generated more robust data on the size of the crisis.
But there is still the fear that official numbers are only the tip of the iceberg and the fear of what can be hidden.
The avalanche
José Sousa-Santos, head of Pacific regional security hub From the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand, it says that “a perfect storm is being formed”.
“The concern is general, at all levels of society and the government, in relation to the HIV crisis in the Figi. Not only what is happening now, but with what will happen in three years and the lack of resources from the country,” he told the BBC.
“Support – Nursing systems, ability to distribute or access medicines for the treatment of HIV – simply do not exist,” he continued.
“This is what terrifies us, we who work in the region: there is no way to face it.”
After declaring the epidemic in January, the Government of the Figi tried to improve its surveillance on HIV and its ability to face the probable underwear of cases.
Global Alert and Response Network, called to provide this support, said in a recent report that “tackling these urgent questions through a well -coordinated national answer is essential to reverse the trajectory of the HIV epidemic in the Figi”.
The report also stressed that the lack of professionals, communication problems, faults for laboratory equipment and the scarcity of quick and medicinal tests against HIV were compromising monitoring, diagnosis and treatment.
The document also states that the collection of data is slow, difficult and subject to errors, making it difficult to understand the extent of the HIV epidemic in the Figi and the effectiveness of the response to the epidemic.
This leaves many experts, ordinary authorities and citizens in the dark. And Sousa-Santos includes an avalanche of cases still coming.
“What we are seeing now is the beginning of the avalanche, but there is no way to stop it, because infections are already happening or they happened there they will not simply be able to see them, and many people will not try to test for the next two or three years,” he says.
“There is nothing we can do right now to prevent the number of infections that took place last year, and that are happening now. This is what really scares.”
Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
