The Blueprint for Action on Women and Girls and HIV/AIDS is trying to build a better future, and will take that message to the seventeenth International Conference on AIDS later this summer. The Blueprint for Action coalition first made waves at the 2006 International Conference on AIDS, when a gender specific report card was presented to the Canadian government. They’re going bigger and better this year.
When Dorothy kicked her heels together in The Wizard of Oz and chanted "There’s no place like home" to get back to Kansas, she ended up warm and secure in her bed. Wouldn’t it be great if this really worked? Being diagnosed with HIV can throw lots of people’s lives out of whack, including their living situation. Ontario’s Positive Spaces Healthy Places research aimed to look at the effects of housing uncertainty on people with HIV. Not surprisingly, it found that housing security is a big stressor.
Have you met Jodi and Krista? Jodi’s been in the community for a while, but Krista is the newest addition to the Oak Tree Clinic team, working this summer for Cara. Jodi and Krista provide outreach to women who need support connecting to health care or community services.
While an HIV diagnosis used to be a death sentence, these days living with HIV can be exactly that: living. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined 5 year survival rates of people living with HIV in developed countries versus their uninfected peers, and found that within the first five years, mortality rates are almost even.
