CATIE Blog | Page 13 | HIV and hepatitis C news and opinions

Moving beyond risk-based testing: Checklist for supporting hepatitis C birth cohort screening

July 19, 2021 • By Dr. Sofia Bartlett, Stephanie Gin and Dr. Terri Buller-Taylor

British Columbia is the first province or territory in Canada to recommend one-time birth cohort screening for hepatitis C among people born from 1945 to 1965. This birth cohort has been identified as a key population that needs to be engaged into hepatitis C virus (HCV) care to reduce liver disease complications for several reasons: there are many undiagnosed cases of hepatitis C, they account for nearly 60% of positive hepatitis C results in B.C., and many people in this cohort have not received confirmatory HCV RNA testing.

Talking about hepatitis C with immigrants and newcomers to Canada

July 7, 2021 • By Fozia Tanveer

In Canada, one in three people affected by hepatitis C was born outside of the country. Hepatitis C prevalence among Canadian immigrants and newcomers is double the overall Canadian prevalence. Research also shows that immigrants and newcomers experience worse health outcomes from viral hepatitis and liver cancer when compared to the Canadian-born population, including higher rates of hepatocellular carcinoma and mortality rates from viral hepatitis and liver cancer that are two to four times higher. Talking to Canadian immigrants about hepatitis C becomes very important given the fact that they are a population at risk of disease.

Holding governments accountable: Canada’s progress on viral hepatitis elimination

July 7, 2021 • By Jennifer van Gennip

In May 2021, Action Hepatitis Canada (AHC) released its Progress Toward Viral Hepatitis Elimination in Canada 2021 Report. Five years earlier, in May 2016, Canada had signed on to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) first-ever Global Viral Hepatitis Strategy with the goal of eliminating viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030. With both a cure for hepatitis C (HCV) and a vaccine for hepatitis B (HBV), this seemed to be a very realistic goal within a reasonable timeframe. But five years on, we had important questions about how Canada was really doing as time was ticking on.

Sharing the voices of people with lived experience on World Hepatitis Day

July 7, 2021 • By Conor Ashleigh, Nikitah Habraken and Christopher Hoy

Launched in 2019, the Connecting with Care films profile innovative models of hepatitis C care for people who use drugs in Toronto, Montreal and Ahtahkakoop First Nation. These films were a partnership between the International Network on Health and Hepatitis in Substance Users (INHSU), the Canadian Network on Hepatitis C (CanHepC) and CATIE. In a recent webinar, we reconnected with the people in these films to learn how they have adapted and responded to the needs of their community during COVID-19. Central to these films was the impact of people with lived experience in planning and delivering harm reduction and...

Improving HIV testing and care in Canada: I’m Ready and Sex Now – Test@Home

June 27, 2021 • By Dr. Sean B. Rourke and Prof. Nathan Lachowsky

HIV self-testing was approved in Canada in November 2020, largely thanks to research conducted by REACH Nexus, part of Unity Health Toronto’s Map Centre for Urban Health Solutions. But approval does not mean access – the next step is getting self-tests into the hands of people who don’t know they have HIV, and linking them to follow-up treatment and care.

The waniska Centre: Strengthening land- and culture-based research

June 21, 2021 • By Sarah MacDonald, Rebecca Zagozewski and Dr. Alexandra King

The waniska Indigenous Centre for HIV, hepatitis C (HCV) and sexually transmitted blood-borne illness (STBBI), funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and based at the University of Saskatchewan, is going to undertake research in a new way. It will engage Indigenous communities and people in research that is focused on Indigenous knowledge and the land to develop, explore and scale up promising and wise practices using both an Indigenous and Western lens.