Saskatchewan has led the country in the rate of new HIV infections and the proportion of people living with HIV since 2009. The HIV epidemic in this province is unique from other jurisdictions in Canada in that more than three-quarters of our new infections occur in people who use injection drugs (the Canadian average is less than 14%). The roots of public health challenges such as HIV and hepatitis C, however, go much deeper than addiction and substance abuse. They started long ago, and they

According to UNAIDS, there were approximately 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2016. Of these, 2.1 million were children (<15 years old). As of July 2017, 20.9 million people living with HIV were accessing antiretroviral therapy (ART) globally, up from 15.8 million in June 2015, 7.5 million in 2010, and less than one million in 2000. HIV treatment known as Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) is medication which is given to HIV positive people to treat HIV but it do

It was not much more than a year ago that I first wrote about Love to Love Organization for PositiveLite.com, having been introduced to their work by my Facebook friend, William Matovu, a young HIV activist working there as an HIV educator and peer advocate.. Suddenly one day there he was on Face Book, with: “This is how it's gonna be... responding to the development of youths and who are less advantaged and orphans by promoting their God given talents."  I liked the attitude and I wanted

As we approach World AIDS Day on December 1, CTAC is sending a strong message that “we’re not going away” by reaching out to select policymakers and their critics at all levels of government across Canada. We are providing them with an update on the issues of access to HIV and HCV treatment and care across Canada. CTAC was created by HIV positive leaders in 1996 to ensure access to treatment, care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS and people living with HIV/hepatitis C co-infe

Statement on behalf of the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health Statements From Public Health Agency of Canada November 30, 2017 Ottawa, ON Government of Canada Every year on December 1st, we come together to mark World AIDS Day and the start of Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Week.  There was a time not long ago when many lives were lost to AIDS in Canada. Thanks to advances in treatment, the situation today is vastly different. With timely interventions and supports, people living wit

The issue of paternalism – agencies who think or assume they are working in the best interests of their clients and make decisions for them – is in the news this week A word about us: PositiveLite.com has always been a bit of an “alt-left” voice when it comes to HIV. We don’t rely for our continued existence on government funders so that gives us a bit more freedom to report on what we – and often others - are feeling. So what’s the mood? Big Picture? The mood is of optimism,

- Previous research has found HIV-positive Canadians stop attending follow-up HIV appointments at rates between 11% and 24%. - Alberta researchers find that many patients “lost to follow-up” are seeking healthcare outside HIV services, often in hospital emergency rooms. - This research has implications for programs that seek to re-engage patients in HIV care. Potent combination anti-HIV therapy (ART) can reduce levels of HIV in the blood (viral load) to very low levels that cannot be de

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times: said Charles Dickens. “It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity." That was about Paris in 1869. It could have been written about Canada in 2017 and the state of our response to HIV. The best of times? Many feel we are approaching the end of the epidemic with 2030 set as the target date by UNAIDS. We are closing in on 90-90-90 targets which means more people li

Geneva, Addis Ababa, 3 July 2017—African heads of state have endorsed two major new initiatives to help end AIDS by 2030. The community health workers initiative aims to recruit, train and deploy 2 million community health workers across Africa by 2020. The western and central Africa catch-up plan aims to rapidly accelerate access to HIV treatment in the region and close the gap in access between African regions. The initiatives were endorsed at the AIDS Watch Africa Heads of State and Gov

The world is on track to reach to reach global targets for reducing AIDS deaths and HIV treatment access by 2020, but some regions of the world risk falling further behind due to lack of political commitment, UNAIDS announced in the run-up to the 9th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science, which opened today in Paris. More than half of all people living with HIV (53%) now have access to HIV treatment and AIDS-related deaths have almost halved since 2005, UNAIDS reports in Endi