Saskatchewan should declare HIV-AIDS public health emergency

published on September 19, 2016 by André Picard, in The Globe and Mail

The rate of HIV-AIDS in Saskatchewan, particularly in First Nations communities, is so high that the province should declare a public-health state of emergency.

That’s the view of a group of doctors in the province who, on Monday, are issuing a cri de coeur for action.

The ad hoc coalition, led by Dr. Ryan Meili of the West Side Community Clinic in Saskatoon, is comprised mostly of physicians who provide front-line HIV care, but they have some chilling data to justify sounding the alarm.

The HIV infection rate in Saskatchewan is 13.8 per 100,000 population, almost double the national average of 7.8 per 100,000.

But the provincewide numbers hide the real problem: On reserves, the infection rate is 64 per 100,000.

Yet, even that number is misleading, and likely an underestimate, because there is very little testing done on First Nations.

Where systemic HIV testing is carried out, the story that emerges is even more troubling.

On the Ahtahkakoop First Nation, for example, 60 of 1,700 residents tested positive for HIV, a staggering rate of 3,500 per 100,000 population.

To put that number in perspective, consider that it is higher than the HIV infection rate in Nigeria.

Since the early days of the epidemic, HIV-AIDS has spread principally through unprotected sex, particularly among men who have sex with men. But, increasingly, the virus is being spread through intravenous drug use, which is a scourge in many impoverished First Nations.

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Saskatchewan should declare HIV-AIDS public health emergency

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