Tag: HIV prevention | CATIE Blog

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...

On-demand PrEP use among GBQM: Insights from the PRIMP study

September 23, 2024 • By Emerich Daroya, Daniel Grace and Darrell H. S. Tan

Many gay, bisexual, queer and other men who have sex with men (GBQM) can benefit from pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV transmission. The use of PrEP involves HIV-negative people taking antiretroviral drugs to lower their chance of getting HIV. PrEP is highly effective and can be taken daily or on demand through the 2-1-1 method, which offers an alternative dosing strategy. This method involves taking two pills two to 24 hours before sex, one pill 24 hours after the first dose, and another pill 24 hours after the second dose. In 2019, the World Health Organization endorsed PrEP on-demand...

Understanding Canada’s progress towards global HIV targets

July 18, 2024 • By Public Health Agency of Canada

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) recently released an infographic with national estimates on Canada’s Progress Towards Ending the HIV Epidemic. These estimates help provide an understanding of the effectiveness of current responses to HIV in Canada and can help identify areas for improvement to guide HIV prevention and care work. However, it can sometimes be difficult to understand what the estimates are really saying. So, let’s explore some helpful tips for interpreting the data. What do the HIV estimates tell us? Progress towards the 95-95-95 global targets are evaluated by using four measures: Based on the recently released...

We have eight years left

November 9, 2022 • By Jody Jollimore

It’s been just over a month since I took the reins as CATIE’s new executive director, but the countdown is already on. We have less than eight years for Canada to eliminate HIV and hepatitis C as public health threats. In 1990, CATIE was founded as a treatment information hub for people living with HIV. Since then, the organization’s mandate has expanded, and we are now Canada’s knowledge broker for service providers working in HIV and hepatitis C prevention, testing, treatment and care. For most of CATIE’s history, an end goal to the epidemic has always seemed just out of...

Cross-boundary PrEP collaboration: A model to emulate

September 8, 2022 • By Lindsay Barton, Monica Durigon, Deanna Macdonald

Since January 1, 2018, eligible British Columbians have been able to receive HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) at no cost, but despite this coverage many still have restricted access to PrEP, especially people living in remote areas of the province. The barriers are many-fold and include persistent stigma, lack of access to healthcare providers and sexual health clinics, lack of awareness, individual discomfort accessing sexual healthcare and lack of transportation to pick up medication or to visit labs for ongoing testing.

Communities start to envision rollout of long-acting PrEP

May 12, 2022 • By Mik Vattiata

You may have heard about The Future of PrEP is Now, a research project aimed at understanding the needs and preferences of Two-Spirit, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (2SGBTQ) men and non-binary folks in regards to long-acting HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) delivery. Despite the fact that oral PrEP is very effective at preventing HIV, it remains underprescribed to many equity-seeking communities.