HIV, the 'explosive epidemic': Fiji suffers the world's fastest spread

Fiji is experiencing the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the world, and health workers describe a system struggling to keep pace.

New infections have surged, driven substantially by injecting drug use and needle sharing, alongside limited testing and a stigma that keeps people away from clinics until they are seriously unwell.

Frontline clinicians say the response has been slowed by shortages of testing capacity and treatment supply, and by a reluctance in some quarters to acknowledge how the virus is actually spreading.

The regional implications are significant. Pacific health systems are closely connected, and public health officials in New Zealand and Australia have been pressed to expand support before the outbreak becomes entrenched across the region.