Category: Articles | Page 5

A conversation between Dr. Theresa Tam and Bruce Richman

January 12, 2023 • By Dr. Theresa Tam and Bruce Richman

Thanks to advances in HIV science over the last four decades, people living with HIV who are on medication and maintain an undetectable amount of virus in their blood can lead long, healthy lives without the fear of passing HIV to their sexual partners. This is the powerful message behind “Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U).” People living with HIV, alongside leaders in the community, have worked tirelessly to share the U=U message and have made significant progress since 2016. This life-changing science has transformed what it means to live and love with HIV globally. Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health...

INHSU 2022: Canada’s place in the global landscape of the health of people who use drugs and hepatitis C elimination

December 21, 2022 • By Rivka Kushner and Brooke Nolan

The International Network on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users (INHSU) hosted its first hybrid virtual and in-person conference in Glasgow, Scotland, from October 19 to 21, 2022. INHSU brings together healthcare and social service providers, researchers, people with lived and living experience, advocates, policy-makers and community leaders to discuss emerging issues, innovative programs, new research and approaches to supporting the health of people who use drugs around the world. Main conference themes included reducing harms and improving the health of people who use drugs, as well as assessing progress and possibilities related to achieving the elimination of hepatitis C...

Listening to communities: Lessons from the HIV/AIDS and monkeypox epidemics

November 9, 2022 • By Malika Sharma

Just over 40 years ago, clinicians recognized a rare form of pneumonia in a handful of otherwise healthy young men in Los Angeles. This cluster would soon become known as the “start” of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 2022, clinicians in sexual health clinics in Montreal reported the first cases of monkeypox in Canada. In both instances, however, affected communities were the first to know that something was up. In the years before HIV was identified, people who inject drugs talked of “junkie pneumonia” or “the dwindles”. Later, these were identified as AIDS-related complications. Early in our current global monkeypox outbreak, members...

Making supervised consumption services work well for the communities they serve

October 10, 2022 • By Katherine Rudzinski, Andre Ceranto and Soo Chan Carusone

What aspects of SCS are most important for people who use drugs? And how do we know if SCS are working well for the communities they serve? These were questions we set out to answer as part of a community-based project in Toronto funded by the Ontario HIV Treatment Network.

You Matter: Pathways to care for STBBIs for people who have been incarcerated

September 26, 2022 • By Hannah Branch and Sofia Bartlett

Created in collaboration with healthcare workers, corrections staff, community groups, researchers and people with living or lived experience, You Matter provides guidelines and policy recommendations for STBBI testing and linkage to care in B.C.’s provincial correctional centres.

Janet Conners, HIV activist extraordinaire, 1956 – 2022

September 19, 2022 • By Louise Binder and Ron Rosenes

Some of us may be hearing Janet Conners’ name for the first time, but all of us in the HIV/AIDS community owe her a debt of gratitude for the remarkable contributions she made while on this earth.