Using Valentine’s Day as a backdrop, Love Positive Women is an annual celebration of women living with HIV. As we honour the positive women around the globe, we must also address the inequities that they face navigating sex, dating and love. How can we ensure that the rights of women living with HIV to have pleasurable and satisfying relationships are protected, supported and uplifted?
Over the past several years, Canada has been in the grip of an overdose crisis. We have seen the devastating effects both of a contaminated drug supply and of punitive laws that restrict access of people who use drugs to effective treatment and support. Now we are facing the twin crisis of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which has radically altered the way we interact with one another and affected the drug supply chain.
As doctors specializing in the clinical care of women living with HIV, we often get questions about breastfeeding and the transmission of HIV. Here’s just one e-mail we received from an infectious disease specialist outside Ontario: “I am seeing a young African woman as a patient who is HIV positive, had advanced disease, but now is suppressed. She is pregnant and had two deliveries in Africa, where she was encouraged to breastfeed. She is still quite adamant about breastfeeding despite my counselling otherwise. How do you manage these situations and what is your approach to this?”
By Allison Carter, Jessica Whitbread and Angela Kaida “I went through a long period, seems like ancient history now, but I remember when I was first diagnosed, I felt so dirty. Like everything about me was, I suppose, unsafe and unclean and my blood was just full of crap. Just the whole thing was very internalized… For the most part now, I feel loveable. I feel good about myself. I just feel like I’ve still got a lot to offer and give and that I can be part of a strong, healthy relationship, despite the difficulties, I suppose.” —Anonymous quote by a...
The emergence of PrEP has highlighted important gender inequalities in HIV transmission and HIV prevention. PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, is a drug that HIV-negative people (including women!) can take to help prevent HIV; however, most discussions about PrEP focus on men. Despite representing fewer new HIV infections than men, women also need innovative HIV prevention methods.
A global study released last year revealed alarming figures concerning women living with HIV and violence. Among 945 women living with HIV from 94 countries who participated in the study, 89 per cent reported having experienced or feared violence before, since and/or because of their HIV diagnosis. Violence they experienced was reported to be higher after HIV diagnosis from their intimate partner and others in their social network.
