Canada’s leading AIDS research centre is marking 20 years of pioneering lifesaving breakthroughs as it changes the face of HIV and AIDS in B.C. and the rest of the world.
Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) at St. Paul’s Hospital, says the centre has been at the forefront in revolutionizing the management of the disease since it opened March 16, 1992.
The state of HIV-AIDS treatment and research in the province today is a far cry from the dark and difficult days of late 1980s and early 1990s, he says.
“While St. Paul’s took steps to help these people out, the rest of the healthcare community was a bit unwilling to commit to these kinds of services,” Montaner says. “The stigma our patients felt in those days was quite palpable.”