On World AIDS Day, new data from the Public Health Agency of Canada showed 1,826 new HIV diagnoses in 2024 — excluding Quebec — representing only a slight dip from recent years.
Dr. Sean Rourke, scientist at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital (Unity Health Toronto) told the Canadian Press that the decrease is “not significant,” noting that rates in Manitoba and Saskatchewan remain three to four times the national average.
He echoed calls from Dr. Darrell Tan and Dr. Ameeta Singh for stronger public health promotion and increased awareness of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and postexposure prophylaxis (PEP), especially among Indigenous communities.
“I think PrEP has incredible potential, but we're not seeing the benefits of that yet,” Dr. Rourke said.
Rourke said the guideline should have focused more on reaching communities with the highest HIV rates, especially Indigenous people in the Prairies. Indigenous Peoples accounted for 19.6 per cent of new HIV diagnoses in 2023, despite representing only five per cent of the population.
“There’s nothing in the paper about how you reach these people,” he noted.
Rourke also highlighted the Ayaangwaamiziwin Centre—an Ojibwe word meaning “carefulness and preparedness”—a network of organizations working to expand testing, prevention, harm reduction, and treatment for HIV and syphilis in underserved and remote communities across the Prairies and northern Canada. Since launching in March, the program has already reached more than 1,500 people.
Read the full article in the Globe and Mail here
