Ottawa announces $18M for HIV testing at AIDS conference

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Monday that the government will invest $17.9 million to increase access to HIV testing in remote communities and among hard-to-reach populations.

But advocates who work on issues related to HIV say the announcement, made at AIDS 2022, the 24th International AIDS Conference in Montreal, needs to be followed by more action.

Duclos said the government will use $8 million to fund the distribution of selftesting kits, which can be acquired anonymously and used at home, while the other $9.9 million will go toward expanding HIV testing in northern, remote or isolated communities.

“We know that HIV is preventable, yet the rates of HIV infections remain high in Canada and in other countries. Providing individuals with access to testing, treatment and care can help reverse this trend. Removing barriers is the key to ending the AIDS pandemic,” Duclos told reporters.

He said access to testing — and the treatment it enables — is more difficult in some communities, including Indigenous and racialized communities.

Jody Jollimore, executive director of the CommunityBased Research Centre, a Vancouver-based organization that advocates for the health of people of diverse sexualities, said the announcement is a good first step.

“Obviously, this was not what we were hoping for,” Jollimore told reporters at the same news conference.

His organization is part of a coalition of community groups that has been calling on Ottawa to increase funding for addressing HIV from around $73 million a year, to $100 million a year.