Fiji declares HIV outbreak a national emergency

Share article Fiji has declared HIV a national emergency with data estimating one in 60 people in the South Pacific island nation is now infected.

The surge in new infections, which have been increasing over the last 15 years according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), has been put down, in large part, to the growing use of injected methamphetamine.

Pacific island nations are being used as transport hubs by drug traffickers, causing a surge in methamphetamine use and transmissions of HIV. Getty Images/iStockphoto

While more than half of transmissions are due to sexual contact, at least 42 per cent of known transmissions are due to injecting drug use, UNAIDS reports.

Methamphetamine use and addiction has spread through Pacific islands including Fiji as traffickers use them as transit hubs on the way to Australia and New Zealand.