Our Samantha reports on a recent encounter with Canada’s leading expert on the impact of antiretroviral therapy, who confirms the Undetectable = Uninfectious message that people living with HIV have been waiting for
I was recently present at McGill University in Montreal to hear Dr Julio Montaner speak about Treatment as Prevention (TasP).
For those who are not aware, Dr. Montaner is a well known Argentinian-born Canadian physician, professor, researcher and a strong advocate for people living with HIV. He is the Director of the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the chair in AIDS Research and Head of the Division of AIDS in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and the past president of the International AIDS Society. He is the Director of the John Ruedy Immunodeficiency Clinic and the Physician Program Director for HIV/AIDS at Providence Health Center.
One of his most important accomplishments has been in the development of ART, originally a triple drug cocktail which he worked on and implemented in 1996 to stop HIV from progressing into AIDS, which in turn extended life span and reduced HIV related deaths.
In 2014 Dr. Montaner helped draft an ambitious treatment target to help end the AIDS epidemic – the 90-90-90 target, which has since been adopted by UNAIDS and many countries including Canada. and by the Pope, among many others. This goal challenges us that by the year 2020, 90% of the population will have been tested for HIV, 90% of those who test positive for HIV will be on treatment and that 90% of those on treatment will have achieved viral supression. When this three-part target is achieved, at least 73% of all people living with HIV worldwide will be virally suppressed by the year 2030.
His statement on transmission risk is simple – people on treatment for HIV, who are in regular medical care, and maintain an undetectable viral load (the amount of the virus found in the blood) cannot transmit the virus.