Victoria missed its HIV elimination deadline. Here's what it will take to finish the job.

A new consensus statement from clinicians, researchers and community organisations sets out six demands for the next Victorian government — and names the communities still being left behind.

Told by Claire Lawson · 17 September 2026

Victoria could become one of the first places in the world to virtually eliminate HIV transmission, and the people who've spent forty years making that possible have just published the list of things standing in the way.

The Melbourne HIV Consensus Statement 2026, released by Thorne Harbour Health and signed by clinicians, researchers and community organisations, sets out six demands for the next Victorian government ahead of the 2026 state election. Victoria set 2025 as the deadline to virtually eliminate new HIV transmissions. That deadline has passed. The statement says the next Parliament can finish the job by 2030 — but only if it funds the prevention, testing and treatment that some Victorians still can't reach.

What the statement demands

First: finish the job. Resource the Victorian HIV Plan to hit its targets — 95% diagnosed, 98% on treatment, 98% virally suppressed, and 95% of those at risk using prevention. The Plan's 2025–26 mid-point review is overdue and has not been publicly released. The statement calls for that to change.

Second: ensure everyone can access prevention, testing and treatment. Here's the receipt: "Make HIV treatment free by covering the PBS co-payment on HIV medicines, as New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia are already doing. The National HIV Strategy list this as a national action, and Victoria is the last big state to charge for HIV treatment."

That co-payment, up to $25 a script since 1 January 2026 ($7.70 with a concession card), is paid for life, and Victoria is the last big state still charging it. The statement also calls for PrEP and PEP to be funded for people ineligible for Medicare, and for people to start treatment within two weeks of diagnosis, whatever their visa status.

Third: support people living with HIV to live well. Ending transmission is half the goal; the other half is quality of life. The statement calls for funding across all four domains — physical, functional, psychological and social — with particular attention to long-term survivors, and for integrated ageing-and-HIV care that coordinates multiple conditions and providers. It also names housing as a barrier: without stable housing, staying on treatment is far harder.

Fourth: end stigma and discrimination. The statement calls for anti-stigma training across health, aged care and social services, and for every Victorian law and guideline to reflect that a person on effective treatment with an undetectable viral load cannot pass on the virus — U=U.

Fifth: invest in community leadership and a sustainable HIV workforce. Community-controlled organisations face funding insecurity, and the specialist workforce is ageing. The statement calls for sustained funding for peer-led organisations, and for building a workforce pipeline — training the next generation of Section 100 prescribers, nurse practitioners and peer workers, with priority to regional and rural Victoria.

Sixth: back research, innovation and transparent data. Victoria's researchers are world leaders in the science that will end HIV. The statement calls for investment in research, for sustaining the Victorian HIV Clinical Quality Registry and coordinated surveillance, and for publishing data disaggregated by population so progress can be reported and funding follows need.

Where progress has stalled

The statement names the communities where diagnoses are not falling — and in some cases are rising: "particularly overseas-born gay and bisexual men, people not accessing specialist sexual health primary care, and heterosexual men and women."

It also names the structural barriers: where you live, who you are, and whether you have Medicare should not determine your access to care. But they do. People in outer-suburban, regional and rural Victoria can't always reach culturally appropriate, community-controlled services. People without Medicare can't get PrEP or PEP funded. People diagnosed today might wait longer than two weeks to start treatment, depending on their visa status.

Every infection avoided saves around $282,000 in lifetime costs. The statement frames prevention as an investment, not a cost — and finishing the job as a question of political will.

Victoria has much to be proud of in how it has responded to HIV over forty years. The science works, the community is organised, and the goal is within reach. What remains is whether the next government will fund the final stretch — and whether the people still waiting for prevention, testing and treatment will have to wait another term.

Correction, 27 September 2026: an earlier version overstated the PBS co-payment and said people without Medicare could not access PrEP or PEP at all; the barrier is funding. A repeat version of this story has been removed.