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"AIDS Toll on Rise in
North America, Agency Reports"
Toronto Star (14/06/05)
The
number of HIV/AIDS cases in Canada is slowly climbing. The Public Health
Agency of Canada recently reported that more than 56,000 HIV-positive cases
have been documented since 1985, including 2,499 new infections in 2003. CDC
figures released at this week's 2005 National HIV Prevention Conference show
that at the beginning of 2004, between 1,039,000 and 1,185,000 people in the
United States were living with HIV or AIDS.
The
numbers reflect the role of AIDS medicines that allow people to live longer,
said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of CDC's National Center of HIV,
STD and TB Prevention. However, some say it has more to do with a failure to
teach effective prevention methods. The focus on abstinence-based HIV
prevention programs should be halted since there is no scientific evidence
they work, say the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV
Medicine Association.
"We
believe abstinence is viable for some people, but our stance is, it doesn't
work for all people," said Chris Lau of the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Lau
said AIDS workers have learned to tailor their message to specific groups
such as men having sex with men, heterosexual partners, and gay or lesbian
youth.
Lau
said HIV/AIDS complacency is a global problem. Since the introduction of
life-prolonging AIDS medicines, many people do not see the disease as the
death sentence it once was, said Lau, and they are often not taking
prevention seriously.
Canadian AIDS Society Executive Director Pierre Lapierre agreed. "The
assumption is that with the pills, it's not that bad, but the reality is
there's still no cure. The treatment is effective, but people are still
dying," he added.
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