Dr. Peter Centre helping Vancouver lead global fight against HIV/AIDS

published on December 1, 2015 by Andrea Woo, in The Globe and Mail

Neil Self found out he was HIV-positive 25 years ago following a routine test. He learned of his diagnosis in the morning and continued on to work, as a grocery store cashier, in a state of disbelief.

“I wasn’t expecting [the test] to come up with that at all,” said Mr. Self, now vice-chair of Positive Living BC, in an interview on Tuesday, World AIDS Day. “I was in shock. I don’t even remember that day at all. I don’t know how effective I was at work.”

The year was 1990 and B.C. was in the grip of a full-blown HIV/AIDS epidemic. At its worst, in 1995, the rate of positive HIV tests among adults was about 18 per 100,000. Doctors were diagnosing two new cases of AIDS every day.

But in the quarter-century since, B.C. – and Vancouver, specifically – has become a world leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Homegrown treatment models have been heralded as the gold standard.

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TasP consists of testing widely for HIV and offering highly active antiretroviral therapy immediately to those who test positive. It forms the basis of an ambitious initiative called the 90-90-90 target, which is for at least 90 per cent of all people living with HIV to know their HIV status by 2020; at least 90 per cent of all people with the virus to have access to high-quality antiretroviral therapy; and at least 90 per cent of those on treatment to have sustained viral suppression.

Advocates say achieving it could mean “the final chapter” of the global AIDS epidemic.

Julio Montaner, who pioneered the treatment, said he is buoyed by election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, which has endorsed the target. As has Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

“If we meet the 90-90-90 target by 2020, we will see a 90-per-cent decrease on the disease burden by 2030,” Dr. Montaner told a crowd at a World AIDS Day event at East Vancouver’s Carnegie Community Centre. “That means that the global pandemic will be no more.”

A person diagnosed with HIV at the age of 25 is now expected to live for 55 years, Dr. Montaner said. This is a dramatic improvement from the mid-1990s, when a person diagnosed with HIV was expected to die within 10 years.

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Julio Montaner

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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Dr. Peter Centre helping Vancouver lead global fight against HIV/AIDS

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