AIDS no longer considered a death sentence

Dr. Julio Montaner remembers when an AIDS diagnosis was pretty much a death sentence.

“Now, it is a chronic illness,” said the doctor who has been on the forefront of research into the disease.

“Twenty years ago, if we were talking to a woman, we would have told her that her survival was compromised and she can’t have a normal reproductive life because she could pass the disease on to her partner or her children,” Montaner said.

“All of that has changed. Now, they can pursue a normal reproductive life, taking the appropriate precautions – and that’s very good news.”

Montaner is the clinical director for the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, as well as chairman of AIDS research and head of the division of AIDS at the faculty of medicine at the University of British Columbia and past-president of the International AIDS Society.

He’s also a doctor who was researching the virus before anyone knew what it was.

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The BC-CfE Laboratory is streamlining reporting processes for certain tests in order to simplify distribution and record-keeping, and to ensure completeness of results. Beginning September 2, 2025, results for the ‘Resistance Analysis of HIV-1 Protease and Reverse Transcriptase’ (Protease-RT) and ‘HIV-1 Integrase Resistance Genotype’ tests will be combined into a single ‘HIV-1 Resistance Genotype Report’.
For more details and example reports, please click on the button below