Communities, Stigma & Point of Care The 13th Australasian Viral Hepatitis Conference
T
he 13th Australasian Viral Hepatitis Conference was held in Brisbane on the last three days of May this year. Key themes throughout included the enormous value of peer work, the vital importance of Aboriginalled viral hepatitis programs, the benefits of Point-of-Care [POC] testing technologies
First Nations
In a demonstration of the importance of Indigenous communities to the future of hepatitis treatment in Australia, Troy Combo, a Program Manager at EC Australia and a proud Bundjalung man, presented on ‘The Road to Hepatitis C Troy Combo’s keynote presentation
and ideas to further enhance their use, and, finally, the ongoing problematic preferential treatment of hepatitis C over hepatitis B.
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elimination in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities’. Troy started by congratulating the newly elected Prime Minister
HEPATITIS SA COMMUNITY NEWS 94 • June 2022
of Australia, Anthony Albanese. He commended the Prime Minister on his promising commencement speech which included an Acknowledgement of Country and a commitment to the Uluru Statement of the Heart. Troy then discussed the 2015 launch of the World Health Organization’s Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis 2016-2021, which sets out three key global hepatitis C targets. However, the strategy included only one reference to indigenous communities. Prior to the launch of this global strategy, in 2014 the inaugural World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Viral Hepatitis was held in Alice Springs. This conference allowed delegates to examine the impact of viral hepatitis on Indigenous communities, but also set goals, share innovations and experiences, and build partnerships to address viral hepatitis amongst Indigenous communities. At the second iteration of this conference (held in Anchorage in 2017— see issue 75, online at bit. ly/3OdZxHg), a powerful consensus statement was
