HIV activists hope World AIDS Day marks an end to backsliding on infections, stigma – CTV
Dec. 1, 2022
OTTAWA – HIV activists are marking World AIDS Day by urging Ottawa to help stop a global backslide in progress on stemming infections and stigma.
“It’s clear to us that this government is seized of the issue, but the truth of the matter is, no movement is happening quickly enough for people with HIV living in Canada,” says Janet Butler-McPhee, who co-leads the HIV Legal Network in Toronto.
The Public Health Agency of Canada estimated that 62,790 people in Canada were living with HIV in 2020, and that 10 per cent of them didn’t know they had the virus.
That represented a slight drop in overall cases from 2018, but an increase among the most vulnerable.
Indigenous people accounted for nearly one-fifth of new HIV infections in Canada in 2020, the data say. That year, women and people who inject drugs made up an increasing share of infections, while men who have sex with men made up a smaller share.
