Author: CATIE | Page 11

HIV self-testing: An unnecessary disruption or a democratizing equalizer?

November 4, 2020 • By Dr. Nitika Pant Pai

I feel like a historian sometimes, when I reflect on each meeting or conference session’s proceedings that I have attended internationally, nationally and locally on the topic of HIV self-testing in the past decade or so. I can see patterns in behaviour, consonance and dissonance of thought, speech and action, and I am left in awe and wonder why we humans don’t end up doing the right thing for other fellow humans in need. For key populations, who need our voice to get the products and services they so rightly deserve.

Celebrating Timothy Ray Brown, “The Berlin Patient”

October 21, 2020 • By Sean Hosein

Earlier this month, we received the sad news of the passing of Timothy Ray Brown. Also known as “the Berlin patient”, Timothy was the first person in the world to be cured of HIV. While he remained HIV-negative until his death, the leukemia that he had successfully fought before returned in 2019. It was this leukemia diagnosis that prompted the historic treatment that cured Timothy of HIV. When scheduled to undergo a stem cell transplant as cancer treatment, doctors matched him with a donor who had an uncommon genetic mutation known to confer resistance to HIV. Although he suffered complications...

Satellite Sites: Providing harm reduction from the homes of people who use drugs

October 13, 2020 • By Liam Michaud, Gillian Kolla and Rhiannon Thomas

The term “satellite sites” is used to refer to informal harm reduction hubs operating out of the homes of people who use drugs. Operating in Toronto for more than 20 years, these sites offer access to sterile drug use supplies outside of more formal settings like health centres. Although many satellite sites offer much more than this – including naloxone and overdose response training, needle disposal and referrals to healthcare services. Satellite programs emerged from the recognition that people who use drugs were already doing this work within their communities, operating informally to meet harm reduction needs and respond to a range of other health needs.

CATIE celebrates researchers awarded Nobel prize for hepatitis C discovery

October 9, 2020 • By Shannon Elliot

The hepatitis C community woke up to great excitement on the morning of October 5, 2020. A flurry of tweets, texts and e-mails shared the news that the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine had been jointly awarded to Dr. Michael Houghton (University of Alberta, Canadian Network on Hepatitis C), Dr. Harvey J. Alter (U.S. National Institutes of Health) and Dr. Charles M. Rice (The Rockefeller University) for their roles in the discovery of the hepatitis C virus.

Re-imagining HIV prevention with young adult Black same-gender-loving men

October 7, 2020 • By David Absalom

Current HIV prevention efforts have and continue to fail Black same-gender-loving (SGL)* men. But with meaningful reflection and changes to service delivery, this can change.

The CTN: 30 years of driving Canada’s HIV research efforts

October 2, 2020 • By Hannah Branch

Thirty years ago, a group of scientists gathered around a kitchen table on Davie Street, in the heart of Vancouver’s West End, to discuss ways to provide better care for and prolong the lives of people living with HIV who, at the time, were dying by the hundreds and extremely stigmatized. In Canada, there was not yet a network for physicians to come together and conduct HIV clinical trials. And so, the CIHR Canadian HIV Trials Network (CTN) was born, providing a platform for Canadian researchers to generate good scientific evidence.