Stigma barrier to HIV testing: nurse

Province has highest disease rates but few new resources, she says

REGINA As mutating strains of HIV make their way across Saskatchewan, frontline workers are calling for more resources to prevent the spread of the virus.

Registered nurse Susanne Nicolay works on the forefront of the HIV epidemic in Saskatchewan, which was front and centre at the 2018 AIDS Conference in Amsterdam on Thursday.

Research from the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Simon Fraser University presented at the conference indicates that mutated strains of HIV in Saskatchewan are leading to Aids-related illness developing faster in Indigenous people.

“Instead of taking eight, 10 or 12 years to progress to having symptomatic HIV infection or progressing to an AIDS diagnosis, this is happening much more quickly, in say two or three years,” Nicolay said.

Saskatchewan has had the highest HIV rates in the country for well over a decade, but there have been very few new resources, Nicolay said in an interview.

“This is an epidemic,” she said. “This is an emergency. There’s urgency. We’re going to pay, no matter what. You can decide to pay on the prevention side and work really hard to prevent further transmission and get people engaged in care and treatment, or we can continue on the path we’re on, seeing new infections, new diagnoses.”

81,000

HIV tests conducted in 2017, up 71% from 2008

77

HIV point-of-care sites in Saskatchewan, 57 more than 2012

$562K

Annual funding to support 26 harm reduction clinics and 3 mobile services 5M

Sterile needles handed out at needle exchanges in 2016-17

96%

Of those needles that were recovered $4M

Federal government funding for prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in Saskatchewan for 2018-19