British Columbia leads the country in reducing the spread of AIDS – there’s no reason it can’t lead the world in eliminating the disease altogether.
B AIDS is one of the world’s deadliest diseases, afflicting nearly 40 million people. Although it is so far incurable, it can be contained, and most important of all, it can be prevented.
Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, believes the disease can be stopped. He’s among the province’s medical experts who have launched a four-year, $48-million pilot program aimed at detecting and treating HIV/AIDS faster. He says B.C. pioneered an approach, beginning in 1999, in which HIV patients were administered a combination of three drugs, which cut the transmission rate of the disease by more than 95 per cent.
New AIDS diagnoses in B.C. are down 85 per cent from the peak in 1996, mainly through a focus on treatment and education.
When the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s, being diagnosed with the disease was tantamount to a death sentence – patients rarely lived more than a few years. But medications have been developed that allow patients to have longer and healthier lives.
Still, there is no vaccine and no cure. Those developments may yet come, but meanwhile, HIV/AIDS is highly preventable. The means of transmission – through human bodily fluids – is clearly understood. It’s a matter of taking the right precautions.