Health Canada has released its latest HIV/AIDS surveillance report, and the news is mostly good. Not only has the number of positive HIV tests reported in 2001 declined by more than 27% since 1995, to 2180, but the free fall in the number of AIDS cases continues, from 1766 reported in 1993 to 297 in 2001 and just 75 during the first 6 months of 2002. Five jurisdictions — Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and the 3 territories — reported no new cases from January to June, 2002.
Dr. Philip Berger, medical director of the Inner City Health Program at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, says the decline “corresponds exactly” with the introduction of antiretroviral drugs and multidrug regimens in the 1990s.
But Berger, a family physician who has been treating AIDS patients for 20 years, also sounded a note of caution by pointing to the growing impact HIV/AIDS is having on girls and women. The surveillance report says females account for 14.7% of all positive HIV tests reported since 1985, but the proportion has increased from 11.4% between 1985 and 1996 to 26% in the first half of last year. Those infected also tend to be young, with girls and women aged 15 to 29 accounting for 42.6% of females who tested positive during the latter period.
The other major area of concern is within Canada's Aboriginal population. The latest data indicate that natives, who comprise less than 3% of the population, accounted for 14.1% of new AIDS cases during the latest reporting period, up from 1.4% between 1979 and 1992. — Patrick Sullivan, CMAJ