Dr. Julio Montaner, Executive Director and Physician-in-Chief of the BC-CfE, introduced Treatment as Prevention® (TasP® ) to the world in a ground-breaking 2006 Lancet paper presented at the IAS Conference in Toronto. At the time, the idea of providing universal access to HIV prevention treatment immediately upon diagnosis was met with controversy. Many thought treatment should be delayed to avoid side effects.

HIV treatment continues to advance, and the global scientific and medical community has coalesced around the concept of TasP® . The made-in-BC TasP® strategy has provided the foundation for the UNAIDS 90-90-90 Target to end AIDS globally by 2030, and adopted by the United Nations. A number of worldwide jurisdictions have officially adopted TasP® as a means to curb their HIV epidemics, including France, Spain, Brazil, Panama, China and the US cities of Washington, DC, and San Francisco.

Research into TasP® received a jumpstart after the introduction of highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART), now the gold standard in HIV treatment. Ecological data from Taiwan and British Columbia suggested new HIV diagnoses had decreased in an unexpected fashion. In British Columbia, the effect of HAART on HIV new cases was apparent, despite a steady rise in syphilis rates—suggesting that it was HIV treatment, rather than other prevention methods, that was driving the decline. It also became clear HAART had the potential to eliminate vertical transmission of HIV, which has since been scientifically proven.

Since those early findings, BC-CfE research has effectively shown that TasP® can improve quality of life and longevity for people living with HIV while curbing HIV transmission. These findings have been echoed in peer-reviewed, scientific studies worldwide. To add, BC-CfE research has demonstrated that TasP® is cost-saving by averting costs related to new incidence of disease or illness. Further, it has now been scientifically established that there is zero chance of HIV transmission when treatment is sustained and viral levels are undetectable due to treatment.

A key component of the TasP® concept is that a person who is on sustained and consistent effective HIV treatment can achieve a level of virus that is undetectable in standard blood tests, at which point they cannot spread the virus to others. The TasP® concept forms the foundation of the Undetectable Equals Untransmittable movement, endorsed by Dr. Montaner and other world-leading researchers, to broaden awareness that an individual who has achieved an undetectable status cannot spread the virus to others.

The made-in-BC TasP® strategy, pioneered in 2006 by the BC-CfE—providing earlier and free access to HIV testing and immediate, supported and sustained access to HIV treatment—is key to curbing HIV and ending AIDS. TasP® and forms the basis of the UNAIDS 90-90-90 Target to end AIDS as a pandemic by 2030 by hitting ambitious—but reachable—targets for expanding access to HIV testing and sustained HIV treatment.