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.