An end to AIDS in Australia

By JAMAL BEN HADDOU

Following what he describes as “lots of passionate affairs in the early '80s”, Max Niggl decided it was finally time to settle down with one man.

After buying and renovating their first home in 1987, Mr Niggl developed what seemed like an ordinary rash and didn’t think much of it until he saw his doctor.

“He told me it was shingles which was being seen in many people who were HIV-positive and that created alarm bells,” he says. “He asked to do an HIV test and silly me just said, ‘I don’t want to know the result, there’s no treatment’ … I lived in denial for about 12 months.”

Within a year Mr Niggl was in hospital with pneumonia, his first AIDS-defining illness.

Like many gay men during the '80s, he had some understanding of what AIDS was, but never imagined it would change his life.

“We saw people literally disappearing from our social circle of friends and people making terribly discriminatory comments like, ‘don’t go near him, he’s got AIDS’ … people started dying and thereby those messages started to sink in,” Mr Niggl says.

He was diagnosed with HIV when the epidemic was at its peak in the 1980s. This later developed into AIDS.

Mr Niggl, now 62, is one of a handful of AIDS-affected people who have lived to see the epidemic come to an end.

“It’s truly remarkable that I’m here to tell my story … when so many friends and acquaintances died,” he says.

Australia’s leading scientists declared “the end of AIDS” in July, as the number of new cases was so small it is no longer considered a public health issue.

The Kirby Institute found more than 35,000 Australians had been diagnosed with HIV and about 10,000 had died from AIDS-related illnesses since 1982.

“My partner was also diagnosed with HIV and from 1994 onwards he had a succession of AIDS-defining illnesses,” Mr Niggl says.

His partner developed CMV retinitis and went blind in just three months.

“He died in September of 1995 so I was literally looking at him and thinking, ‘is this what is going to happen to me?’” Mr Niggl says.

“There wasn’t really any hope until 1996 when the new treatments came on board, but even those new medications were not as effective as the treatments we have now,” he says.

The Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations found there were still 1000 new cases of HIV illnesses every year, most commonly spread through sexual intercourse without a condom.

Around 27,000 Australians are living with HIV today however, with regular anti-retroviral treatment, they will not have a dramatically shortened lifespan.

Mr Niggl says living with HIV in Australia has changed significantly since the 1980s.

“It’s just chalk and cheese because back then we didn’t think we would survive … drugs at the time were terribly ineffective with some awful side-effects” he says.

“Treatments are so effective now … taking [them] is almost just a routine of my daily life and I don’t even think about putting those pills down my throat,” he says.

“In the 1980s and early 1990s all I could think of was how am I going to get through the day with the side-effects?”

Although effective medication is now available, he says the issue of stigma and shaming still exists.

Mr Niggl has been working in the HIV/AIDS sector for more than 16 years and coordinates a Victorian program of HIV-positive speakers who mostly speak in schools.

“Stigma and discrimination is still one of the biggest issues that is confronting HIV globally and here in Melbourne,” Mr Niggl says.

“We need to encourage a new generation of HIV activists to take the place of people like me,” he says. “The Australian AIDS epidemic might be over here, but certainly not globally. There’s a lot of work to do.”