I love Sunrise, Sunset, that song from Fiddler on the Roof when the parents at a wedding sing about how quickly their children grew and how sweet, and also sad it was. When I look back on my time working in HIV (fifteen years now), I am struck with sadness and sweetness too. There were the people who died way too young, before life saving treatments were available, and there are those I’ve known for years, longer than they thought they would ever live. When HIV treatments work, lives can be extended significantly, and now people are contemplating middle and perhaps old age. Even ten years ago, who could have imagined the words HIV and aging would be in the same sentence? Thanks to HIV treatments, they can be, and aging with HIV is a reality for many.

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Most of us will never visit Chad, and I admit I had to double-check exactly what and where N’Djamena was when I started to look into the criminalization of HIV.  N’Djamena is the capital city of Chad – a city known for its meat-processing and lack of railway lines, in a country known for internal and external conflict.  It is also, incidentally, where a small group of well-meaning people sat down in 2004 to develop a “model general law of HIV” outlining the rights of persons living with HIV/AIDS.  The group was called AWARE-HIV/AIDS and their document has come to be known as the N’Djamena model law.  It includes the right to healthcare services, confidentiality, pre- and post-test counselling, as well as protection from discrimination.  These are all good things that we advocate here at PWN, so why is the HIV/AIDS community up in arms against it?

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A few weeks back I posted about the results of a teen sex survey in Toronto (in a nutshell, the kids want more information than they currently get). One of the things that struck me in the analyses of the study was that 4% of the respondents said they weren’t sure they’d had sex, yet they reported vaginal, oral and anal sex experiences. Which leads me to ask, what are we talking about when we discuss sex? To me, sex can be many things to many people (Hallelujah!), and safe sex involves lots of possibilities. But the study makes me think this isn’t the case in general.

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Apparently, it’s not cool at the moment to be hopeful about finding a cure for HIV/AIDS, and it seems even the vaccine hype of recent years is mellowing.  Well, I want to share with you the fact that I am hopeful.  An exciting discovery just a couple weeks ago has renewed my faith that we will beat HIV.  A recent study found that people who are successfully managing HIV with antiretroviral therapy (ART) may be able to destroy the HIV lying dormant in their cells, by targeting these cells with chemotherapy.  It’s not that I’m allowing myself to get too excited about this particular possibility – don’t want to count our chickens before they hatch and all that.  But to me as an observer (rather than a researcher), this new area for exploration came completely out of the blue, and it reminds me that there are a million-and-one different angles and directions from which to approach finding a cure.  As long as we have the ability and the means to be creative in research, to explore and learn more about this still mysterious virus, we simply cannot guess what all the possibilities are for conquering HIV/AIDS.

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CBC recently reported  on how First Nations Health is faring in the province. BC Medical Office Dr. Perry Kendall released the Pathways to Health and Healing Report  on June 26. While some health indicators are improving in Aboriginal populations, HIV is a growing concern. Aboriginal people make up 5% of BC’s population, yet they account for 15-17% of new HIV tests per year (page 193 of the report). Aboriginal women in particular have been hit hard with HIV infection, making up 37.5% of positive women living with HIV in BC.  And Canadian statistics reveal that among Aboriginal people across the country, women represent 48.1% of positive tests (approaching the 50% infection rates in some African countries). Some of the HIV health indicators in the report that have worsened may also contribute to HIV risk as well.

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