‘What are we not doing?’ Advocate sounds alarm on HIV surge

Fiji's response to the growing drug and HIV crisis needs to be strengthened — and fast — according to Drug World Fiji founder Kalesi Volatabu, who is calling on authorities to expand drug testing, strengthen prevention programmes and adopt wider harm-reduction measures.

Ms Volatabu said the increasing number of drug-related incidents and HIV infections linked to needle sharing showed the country could no longer rely on existing approaches.

“Every time I look into the newspaper, on television or even on Facebook, I see drug and HIV cases in Fiji spiking,” Ms Volatabu said.

A major contributing factor is needle sharing, commonly referred to as “bluetoothing”, which has been linked to the rise in HIV infections.

“My question is, what are we not doing? One of the narcotics strategies we put in place was needle exchange,” she said.

Ms Volatabu said providing clean needles was a harm-reduction measure aimed at preventing the spread of HIV and should not be viewed as encouraging drug use.

“We are not encouraging drug use. We are trying to curb the number of HIV cases,” she said.

While calling for stronger intervention, she acknowledged the work of frontline HIV response teams and volunteers working in communities.

“They have done great work on the ground,” she said.

However, Ms Volatabu believes more needs to be done, particularly in implementing broader and more consistent drug testing policies across all sectors, including uniformed services.

“There has to be drug testing all across. It doesn’t matter whether you are in uniform, there has to be drug testing,” she said.

She also questioned whether current drug awareness efforts in schools were adequate given the scale of the challenge facing the country.

“There are many weeks in a school term, yet only one week is focused on drug awareness and only one day sometimes,” she said.

“How do you address this when you still do that? You cannot apply the same action and expect different results.”

Ms Volatabu said Fiji needed stronger systems and the right people in place to effectively tackle rising drug use and the growing number of HIV infections linked to risky drug-taking behaviour.

As concerns continue to mount over the intersection of drug abuse and HIV transmission, she said authorities must act decisively to prevent the situation from worsening.