Up to 4,500 people in B.C. are carrying the HIV virus unaware – and spreading it, health officials believe.
“Of all people who have HIV, probably about a quarter don’t know it,” says Dr. Reka Gustafson, a medical health officer for the Vancouver Coastal Health region. “One of the main reasons for that is we don’t test for HIV as much as we should. There are very few screening tests that have such a great potential for benefit, both for the individual and for their community.
“We haven’t really incorporated HIV testing into the medical care that people are already receiving. We’re missing too many opportunities to recommend tests to people. It isn’t that people are avoiding HIV testing. It just doesn’t cross their mind.”
Official estimates of the number of unwitting HIV carriers range from 2,500 to 4,500. More than half of new HIV infections in B.C. are transmitted by people who don’t know they carry the virus, Gustafson says.