SASKATOON – Great strides are being made in the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) in dealing with HIV. However, health region officials said there is still a lot of work to be done.
Newly diagnosed cases of HIV reported in the region in 2014 were the lowest they’ve been since 2002, with 33 new cases in total.
However, preliminary data from this year indicates that cases are again on the rise with 45 confirmed in 2015, some of which are discovered very late. Officials said increased testing is one of the reasons behind the rise in HIV cases.
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Testing for HIV has increased by 58 per cent from 2011 to 2014 and HIV is no longer considered a death sentence.
“The still leading risk factor is injection drug use, but that’s come down significantly,” said Dr. Johnmark Opondo, the SHR deputy medical health officer.
“It’s about 50 per cent and then we have heterosexual transmission and men who have sex with men, but the proportionate increase in those two other demographics has been significantly higher.”
Cases among First Nations and Métis populations continued to be disproportionately high as well, with 52 per cent of all newly diagnosed cases falling within those ethnic groups. That’s still better than the 70 per cent of cases in 2009 when health officials saw a peak of 99 cases that year.
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