Sarah Leamon: Despite what Stephen Harper says, supervised injection sites make a difference

Earlier this month, Vancouver played host to the eighth annual International HIV/AIDS Conference, bringing the world’s top experts, scientists, doctors, and community planners together and putting the city under a microscope.

A prestigious opportunity for the city, this conference offers much more than that. It offers the opportunity for leading professionals in the global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic to gather, share scientific research and developments, and explore realistic mechanisms to move forward.

But this is not the first time that our city has been recognized for its contributions in the fight against HIV/AIDS-far from it in fact. Vancouver has long been recognized as a world leader in HIV/AIDS research and policy. In 1996, Dr. Julio Montaner and his team at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, which is housed at St. Paul’s Hospital, pioneered an innovative antiretroviral therapy that is still being used today. Over the years, we have received a number of accolades for progressive treatments and policies to deal with HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

Aside from clinical advances, Vancouver has also garnered a great deal of international attention for its rather prolific supervised injection site, which is aptly named Insite and located in the Downtown East Side.

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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

Laboratory Order Forms

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