Ready to exhale

ONE day, and one day very soon, HIV will be contained.

There will soon be no new HIV diagnoses. The signs are already here: there are no more deaths caused directly by AIDS-related illnesses, and soon there will be reports of periods of no new transmissions of HIV and then, with tentative rumours, whispers cascading to controversial bold claims and then a final roar of confirmation that there are no more HIV transmissions on the landmass of Australia.

It will happen, and soon.

Sure, there will be minor mop ups as visitors and migrants – mostly from high HIV prevalent countries – are welcomed from plane and boat to the land of PrEP, testing and TasP (treatment as prevention), but the substantive epidemic for Australians will be over. AIDS is already the polio of our times, HIV is heading the same way. And I’m excited.

For a generation and a half, our identity has been shifted into the HIV zone. All that energy, all that focus and all those resources will soon release to find another home. Maybe now we can talk of getting new stuff done and maybe now we deserve some new, bright and shiny things. We gave so much, let’s talk rewards.

I came out in 1982 by calling the South Australian Gay Counselling Service phone number. I spoke to a counsellor for a while who suggested the Thursday night “Drop In”. I went (we’ll skip the bit where I was terrified) and while I was there, Ian Hunter, now a South Australian upper house MP, dropped by with a flyer for a new Gay Youth Group he was starting ­.

Scroll to Top

During the Canada Post strike announced September 25, 2025, the following measures will be undertaken to minimize service disruption to BC-CfE clients and providers.

  • The BC-CfE Laboratory has transitioned to private courier for delivery of outgoing reports and documents. Results required urgently can be faxed upon request. (Lab Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8775; FAX 604-806-9463)
  • The BC-CfE Drug Treatment Program (DTP) will fax outgoing forms and documents to the provider’s office. (DTP Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8515; FAX 604-806-9044)
  • St. Paul’s Hospital Ambulatory Pharmacy has transitioned to private courier for delivery of medications. We recommend requesting medication at least 2 weeks in advance in case of delivery delays, particularly to rural/remote parts of BC. (Contact Information: Phone 1-800-547-3622; FAX 604-806-8675)

During the Canada Post strike, we recommend that documents be faxed or couriered to our sites, versus utilization of regular mail service

The BC-CfE Laboratory is streamlining reporting processes for certain tests in order to simplify distribution and record-keeping, and to ensure completeness of results. Beginning September 2, 2025, results for the ‘Resistance Analysis of HIV-1 Protease and Reverse Transcriptase’ (Protease-RT) and ‘HIV-1 Integrase Resistance Genotype’ tests will be combined into a single ‘HIV-1 Resistance Genotype Report’.
For more details and example reports, please click on the button below