Policy and strategic implications of Australia’s divergent HIV epidemic among gay men

The importance of this issue of Sexual Health has technical, strategic and policy dimensions. Overall Australia continues to have a relatively well-controlled HIV epidemic, contained by and large to gay men. The lack of significant transmission affecting intravenous drug users continues to bear testament to sound public health policies, for which we continue to be the envy of countries that took a different route. There has, however, been an increasing rate of notifications among gay men in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia and the numbers of such transmissions for Australia as a whole has also increased as a result. This gives rise to the first impetus for this issue of the journal. It provides a timely basis for considering adjustments to our to-date successful prevention strategies. In New SouthWales (NSW), the state hardest hit by the HIV