Somehow I always manage to spot Dr. Julio Montaner in the news.  It could be because I have a bit of a thing for pioneering Argentine doctors (this is Miriam speaking, not Janet!), but it’s more likely because Dr. Montaner has been in the news a lot lately.  He’s been busy garnering support for his ambitious pilot project – “Seek and Treat for Optimal Prevention of HIV/AIDS” (STOP HIV/AIDS).  The goal of the project is to increase access to HIV treatment and care among vulnerable communities in B.C. while decreasing the HIV transmission rate.  How would it work?

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This weekend a group of women will head to Bowen Island to learn about HIV treatments, HIV and medicinal marijuana, the law and HIV disclosure, terachings from the sweat lodge, and have some fun. It’s retreat weekend, and for three quarters of the women going, it will be their first time on a retreat. It’s not easy to meet a bunch of strangers and talk about your diagnosis, but year after year, women do so and come back smiling. We’ve been offering retreats for 15 years now (we’ve even developed a Retreat Planning Toolkit to help other organizations), and we’ve learned that providing a safe space for women to connect and learn about HIV can change people’s lives forever.  

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Since HIV first began to be seen in North America (and much of the northern hemisphere), it’s been linked with gay men. People living with HIV regularly deal with stigma and discrimination, something gay/ lesbian/ two-spirited people/ trans folks can also appreciate. The theme of this year’s International Day Against Homophobia (May 17) is that “homosexuality is a universal fact and cannot be restricted by borders.” This echoes the reality that HIV is not a virus of any one country, but a virus of humans worldwide. Yes, it is more prevalent in some regions than others, but nowhere are we safe if ignorance and prejudice are afoot.

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In 1996, the audience at the International AIDS Conference in Vancouver heard about Highly Active Retroviral Therapy (HAART), a combination of drugs designed to limit the replication power of HIV and revitalize the immune system. HAART became the standard of treatment in the developed world, and a combination of three or more drugs with dizzying dosing schedules required tables and timers to make them effective. But HAART changed the shape of life for people with HIV. Flash forward: putting drugs into combination formulas lessened the number of pills, eased up on the scheduling challenges and some side effects. We are now in an age where HIV is often billed a chronic manageable illness, although class, race, gender and geographical differentials defy this as a universal term. Even here in treatment-rich BC, not everyone who qualifies is on treatment. The reasons why go beyond medicine.   

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Several staff and members of PWN attended the Canadian Association for HIV/AIDS Research Conference last week. It’s a conference that offers sessions in several areas, from basic science to social science, epidemiology and public health. It’s big enough to offer a good array of options (abstracts can be viewed online). What was particularly great was the passion. Yes, there was lots of information to spur everyone on to do more work, extend our reach and connect more with each other across this big country, but the attitude around and about was positive.

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