Hep C & HIV
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Users News provides an update on how NUAA is helping to eliminate hepatitis C in Australia.
This year, NUAA outreach workers have participated in 2 successful high-intensity testing campaigns in NSW Correctional Centres. In April, the HITC crew were in Nowra at the South Coast Correctional Centre where over 90% of the population received a hep C test. This was followed by another successful event at the Bathurst Correctional Centre in June.
Reflections on the missing piece in the hepatitis C elimination puzzle: the supply of clean sterile injecting equipment in Australian correctional centres.
Hepatitis means 'inflammation of the liver'. The liver is a vital organ — it does over 500 things, including detoxing the body of the poisons in medications, pollution and processed foods; storing iron and other vitamins; storing energy from food and releasing it when you need it; and defending against germs like flus and colds.
Carla is a peer worker at a Needle and Syringe Program and in the hep C testing and treatment space. She tells how she uses her lived experience helps her help others to access the health care they need.
Interview with 3 people with lived experience of incarceration who gave us the lowdown on the risk of hep C in jail and how it is best avoided.
In late March, the Peers on Wheels (POW) project carried out its 600th Point of Care Test (POCT) for the hep C virus. The POW project is an ongoing 1-year pilot scheme by NUAA — in partnership with The Kirby Institute, NSW Health, and selected Local Health Districts — to bring hep C testing and treatment to people who inject drugs, wherever they are in NSW.
Hep C isn’t nice. It makes you feel permanently sick and run down. There are reasons, however, why people might be reluctant about getting treated. Before 2016, the main treatment was Interferon. As Aunt Libby — an Aboriginal elder and grandmother of 13 (soon to be 14) — explains, that treatment could feel worse than the illness it was curing. The good news is that the new treatment (a box of pills called “Direct Acting Antivirals” or DAAs) is much easier: fewer pills, no injections and much fewer side effects. Furthermore, they are free or cheap, and if you get reinfected you can do the treatment again — as many times as you need to. Aunt Libby has had both hep C treatments. In this article she compares the 2 and says, “I’d recommend this treatment to anyone. But Interferon, they can forget about that one!”
Through the Peers on Wheels (POW) project, NUAA has partnered with The Kirby Institute, NSW Health, and selected Local Health Districts, to work towards eliminating hep C through outreach, testing and offering treatment options. At the heart of the project is a van, with a Point of Care Testing (POCT) machine and a skilled peer workforce. The aim is to remove barriers to hep C treatment among people who inject drugs by going to where people live and providing the service without stigma. The POW team has visited various regional cities and towns and rural communities around NSW, but Users News caught up with them in Riverwood in the suburbs of Sydney.
Kate is a proud Aboriginal woman who has a history of injecting heroin. She wants to share her unique experience of clearing hep C twice, nearly 2 decades apart. Her first treatment was in prison in the early 2000s, with Interferon. Soon after she got out of prison, she got hep C again and didn’t get treated until 2019. Getting treated a second time has been life changing for her and she now supports peers with hep C and drug use.
Peers On Wheels (POW) is a new pilot project NUAA has launched. The project delivers mobile peer-led testing and treatment services for hepatitis C (hep C). POW is friendly, confidential, quick and easy. POW is visiting a bunch of places in NSW over the coming months. To help spread the word to peers, we interviewed MJ, the project’s Coordinator.
Katrina is a peer distributor for NUAA in a small rural town in NSW. She’s known she’s had hep C for 6 years but has found it hard to get treated because of the lack of services in her area and past experiences of stigma within a health care setting.
“I was so run down all the time, drugs were the only way to give me energy and improve my mood”
‘You can’t know what is hep C and what is life, or getting older, or a lifetime of drug use. But once I got rid of it I knew — hep C had really held me back.‘
‘When I inject into my veins, it’s my way or the highway.’
“While I’ve caused myself a few “headaches” by taking safe using seriously, it’s helped me steer clear of some nasty “migraines” like bloodborne viruses.
‘Here are several “myths” about hep C that are false or no longer true. Check to see if there is anything listed here that you need to change your mind about!’
'I'm one of those people who gets 2 boxes of fits every time I come to the Community Centre, even if I haven't finished the last 2 boxes.'
“I asked some of my mob who are living in the country about sharing injecting equipment and why they do it - or more to the point, why they don't have new, sterile fits for every hit.”
When Toby commenced treatment for hepatitis C he decided to confide in his supervisor. Toby had believed that as a valued employee for 25 years he would be given support, if needed, from his employer. As soon as he told his employer he had hep C, he was placed off work without pay. They suggested he approach Centrelink to apply for sickness benefits, which he did, but as he was not sick, he was not eligible.
Users News explores the appeal and health risks of illegal tattooing.