A few days before ringing in the New Year, I received an email notification that got me super excited about the future of HIV prevention. I needed the boost – the omicron surge of COVID-19 was just starting to tear through communities across the country, and had even hit my own household, making for a painfully lonely holiday season just as my husband and our kids were starting the school winter break.
While the U=U message has been getting a lot of momentum in recent years, the role of HIV treatment in preventing HIV through other transmission routes is not as widely known. This information is important for informed healthcare decision making and further destigmatizing HIV.
HIV continues to be a global health threat, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In keeping with UNAIDS goals for reducing that burden, HIV prevention by PEP and PrEP have played major roles in reaching those goals. While PrEP has been instrumental in preventing HIV in people with high-risk exposures, we have seen gaps in HIV prevention strategies, especially among individuals who have less frequent exposures. This is where “pill-in-pocket PEP”, better known as PIP, has a substantial role to play.
To find out how the series It’s A Sin started a national dialogue about HIV in the United Kingdom, and what Canadian HIV organizations can learn from that experience, former CATIE board chair John McCullagh spoke to Ian Green, chief executive officer of Terrence Higgins Trust, the largest HIV charity in the United Kingdom.
Over the past five years, Ontario has seen a steady increase in the number of people using pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Between January and March 2020, 8,413 people were on PrEP – up from 289 in 2015. While most of these people live larger cities like Toronto and Ottawa, PrEP use has also increased in regions across the province.
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.
