Disrupting HIV/AIDS transmission

published on May 24, 2016 in UBC

In the early 1980s a newly emerging, unknown disease was causing panic. There was no viable treatment, vaccine or cure. Nobody could fight it.

Then in 1987, a young Argentine-Canadian physician who had specialized in respiratory diseases, was put in charge of St. Paul’s Hospital/UBC’s AIDS Research Program and the Infectious Disease Clinic. At the time, there were many — mostly young — men being admitted to the hospital who were suffering from a lethal form of pneumonia known as PCP (pneumocystis pneumonia) and the young physician started asking questions.

Those questions changed the course of history.

That inquisitive physician: Dr. Julio Montaner, UBC faculty member and pioneering HIV researcher, who went on to lead the innovation of a highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). This combination therapy effectively stopped HIV’s disease progression to AIDS.

Montaner has since led the world out of the dark days of AIDS with this life-saving antiretroviral therapy, as well as a forward-thinking treatment strategy.

If implemented worldwide, the made-in-BC medical application — Treatment as Prevention® (TasP®) — has the potential to stop a global epidemic in its tracks.

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St. Paul's Hospital 608–1081 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6Z 1Y6
Tel: 604-806-8477 | Fax: 604-806-9044
General inquiries: info@bccfe.ca
Media inquiries: communications@bccfe.ca
(Please do not use any of these email addresses to send personal information or book an appointment. To book appointments or contact the H2H clinic, please call 604-416-1517 or fax: 604-564-4893. Do not send your or your client's personal information via email.)

© Copyright BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
St. Paul's Hospital 608–1081 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6Z 1Y6
Tel: 604-806-8477 | Fax: 604-806-9044
General inquiries: info@bccfe.ca
Media inquiries: communications@bccfe.ca
(Please do not use any of these email addresses to send personal information or book an appointment. To book appointments or contact the H2H clinic, please call 604-416-1517 or fax: 604-564-4893. Do not send your or your client's personal information via email.)

Our work serves clients and communities across British Columbia on lands and waters cared for and nurtured by the many distinct First Nations across the province. The BC-CfE humbly and gratefully acknowledge the stewards of these lands, particularly the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) on whose unceded, traditional and ancestral territories our offices are located.