CATIE Blog | HIV and hepatitis C news and opinions

The Kotawêw Indigenous HIV/STBBI Doula Project: How kinship has guided our research journey

February 18, 2025 • By Candace Neumann, Melissa Morris and Rusty Souleymanov

The Kotawêw Indigenous HIV/STBBI Doula Project is a community response to the disproportionate impact of HIV and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBIs) on Indigenous women and gender-diverse people. While our work is currently in the research phase, our goal is to co-create a curriculum to train Indigenous doulas who can support community members by fostering connections to HIV/STBBI prevention and treatment services through care grounded in kinship and traditional practices. Our core team is made up of Indigenous women and Two-Spirit researchers with lived experience, and allies. The project is co-led by two Elders/Knowledge Holders, Albert McLeod and...

Providing STBBI services to trans people: Beyond kindness, what truly matters?

February 18, 2025 • By Asya Gunduz

It is around 11 p.m. and I am getting an urgent call from a friend who is a community member and a refugee trans woman living with HIV. She is telling me that she cannot get the urgent treatment she needs at the hospital and that the front desk misgendered her many times and frowned upon her broken English. Later, I learned that different clinics denied and delayed her HIV and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) meds for different reasons like lack of insurance or language barrier. Another community member who is nonbinary, assigned female at birth, was constantly questioned at...

Prevention vs. resistance: The doxyPEP dilemma

February 18, 2025 • By Kevin Woodward

It seems that everyone is taking doxyPEP now. Every day in my clinic, people ask me about it, often conflating it with HIV PrEP. Many believe that if they are on doxyPEP, worrying about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) will be a thing of the past. DoxyPEP involves taking an antibiotic called doxycycline after sex to help prevent bacterial STIs and has been primarily studied in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM), as well as trans women. What we know from these studies is that there is a benefit for individuals, specifically gbMSM and trans women,...

Why sex education needs to evolve

February 13, 2025 • By Roxanne Ma and Jazmine George

Revenge porn, sexting, nudes, unsolicited dick pics, catfishing, dating apps, OnlyFans, consent, queer sex, polyamory—the list goes on. It’s safe to say that youth today are growing up in a drastically different context than previous generations when it comes to discovering and navigating their sexuality, identity, relationships, sexual health and safety. Young people today are arguably more vulnerable than previous generations due to higher levels of interconnectedness and exposure to false or harmful content on the internet. The need for modern supports to help young Canadians navigate these online spaces, content and interactions is vital. The sex talk reboot The...

Chronic hepatitis B in Canada: Challenges, insights and pathways forward

December 4, 2024 • By Jean Damascene Makuza, Daryl Luster and Dahn Jeong

Hepatitis B is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV), which can result in either acute or chronic infection. Most HBV infections are transmitted from mother to child at birth, shortly after birth, or during early childhood. Research shows that infections in babies and young children are more likely to become long-term, so vaccination at birth is crucial to prevent transmission. Other modes of transmission include exposure to infected body fluids like blood, saliva, vaginal fluids and semen. The main transmission routes include injection drug use, vaginal, anal and oral sex, being born to a mother with...

Realizing PrEP’s full potential: It’s time to broaden awareness and access

November 19, 2024 • By Mallory Harrigan

PrEP is a highly effective tool for preventing HIV, but remains underused by many populations who could benefit. In order to realize PrEP’s full potential to dramatically reduce the number of HIV transmissions in Canada, there’s an urgent need to scale up its use and broaden its reach. Promisingly, PrEP has played a role in reducing the number of HIV transmissions among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM), who make up the vast majority of people currently using PrEP in Canada. For example, studies have shown that PrEP contributed to declines in HIV transmissions among...