To better understand the issues and priorities of people who use drugs in Quebec during the COVID-19 pandemic and the overdose crisis, CATIE conducted a short interview with Frankie Lambert and Chantal Montmorency, two staff members of the Quebec association to promote the health of people who use drugs (AQPSUD). Here are the concerns raised by their community.
Viral hepatitis impacts Indigenous peoples around the world at much higher than average rates, harming their physical, spiritual, emotional, social and economic health. This is the result of historic and ongoing colonialism, and includes significantly worse health determinants, inadequate access to immunization and treatment, and inadequacies in the provision of culturally safe and responsive healthcare to Indigenous people. COVID-19 has further impacted Indigenous peoples, but many communities and healthcare practitioners are finding innovative ways of responding to the pandemic, while simultaneously trying to continue providing hepatitis care. Many of these responses were shared in a virtual mini-conference hosted by the...
Point-of-care (POC) tests for hepatitis C expand testing beyond clinical settings where a blood draw is not readily available. They are an important tool in the effort to eliminate hepatitis C as an endemic disease by 2030. The only Health Canada-approved POC test is the OraQuick hepatitis C antibody test, which requires a 20-minute wait before the results can be read.
Risk calculators for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) use answers to a set of sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, sex, ethnicity, geographic location), health status, or behavioural questions to estimate a person’s risk for developing or acquiring HIV and STIs. They can also indicate the most appropriate action for users to take.
The year 2020 will leave an indelible mark on our collective consciousness: across the world, people are confronted with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and it seems to have consumed our lives. For many of us, not a day goes by that we don’t think about the virus, how it has altered our daily activities and what we need to do for our communities to remain healthy. Since the virus hit Canada in March 2020, service providers from across the country have mobilized to keep their clients safe and provide them the care and services they need to prevent, test...
To help incarcerated people who use substances successfully integrate back into their communities, Direction 180 started the Peers Assisting and Lending Support (PALS) program in January 2019 through harm reduction funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Direction 180 is a community-based organization that offers an opioid treatment program in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
