Dr. Julio Montaner is director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, chair of AIDS research and head of the division of AIDS in the faculty of medicine at the University of B.C.
He’s been fighting a running battle with Ottawa to implement a policy similar to that of the B.C. government to “seek and treat” the most vulnerable HIV victims.
In 2010, B.C. announced a four-year, $48-million pilot program for Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Prince George to seek and treat vulnerable populations who are either undiagnosed or untreated for HIV.
The program is meant to expand medications among hard-to-reach populations, including sex-trade workers, injection drug users and men who have sex with men, while serving to reduce the virus’s spread.
Said Montaner: “Six years ago we went to the federal government with a strategy that was exactly this, where we could stop HIV in the rest of the country. B.C. adopted it; we have had a 65-per-cent decrease in HIV new infections.”
He said Ottawa’s failure to follow suit “constitutes criminal negligence because to allow infections to persist in this country in vulnerable populations. …”