Treatment as Prevention®

Sunday December 1st marks World AIDS Day, a solemn day to remember the millions of lives lost to HIV/AIDS, reflect on the progress we’ve made and focus on the work still to be done. This day is particularly poignant here in BC, the epicentre of Canada’s epidemic in the 1980s. Within a decade and a half, however, the 1996 International AIDS Conference offered the first glimmer of hope with the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy, which for the first time allowed us to stop disease progression to AIDS and premature AIDS-related mortality. Shortly thereafter, we demonstrated that people living with HIV (PLWH) who were on effective therapy were no longer infectious, so we proposed to expand treatment coverage to all PLWH with the aim of stopping the epidemic.

August 31st is International Overdose Awareness Day, an annual campaign to end overdoses, remember without stigma those who have died from overdose, and acknowledge the grief of the family and friends left behind. The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) joins families, friends and communities in mourning the needless losses of life through overdose and continue to advocate for an end to the toxic drug crisis through a safer supply of drugs.