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Saskatchewan is working towards goals that didn’t seem attainable even one decade ago.
The work within harm reduction and battling the AIDS crisis has been vast, particularly towards the Indigenous population in Saskatchewan. Tuesday is World AIDS Day, meant to bring awareness towards the disease that has the highest rates in Canada right here in Saskatchewan.
Dr. Ibrahim Khan is a regional medical health officer for the First Nations, Inuit health branch of Indigenous Services Canada, focused on the Saskatchewan region.
He said the work battling against the high AIDS rates in the province has been largely aided by a program called “Know Your Status.” It extends to 30 Indigenous communities, is nurse-led and provides care in a culturally grounded way.
“Communities are doing everything possible to tackle and to address these elevated rates,” Khan said Tuesday.
Saskatchewan has 50 sites that can test for both HIV and hepatitis C across the province’s Indigenous communities.
Khan said the program is now internationally acclaimed, as it has helped the rate of infections drastically.
Eighty per cent of the program’s HIV clients are in treatment within the first month of their diagnosis, and 79 per cent of HIV clients are now virally suppressed.
When an individual becomes virally suppressed, they cannot transmit the virus.
The battle within harm reduction in the province doesn’t stop at HIV or AIDS.
Last summer, Khan said, a syphilis outbreak was declared across Saskatchewan’s Indigenous communities. The rates were eight times those in the rest of the province.
“You see First Nations people disproportionately impacted. There are reasons why … the intergenerational trauma, addictions and access to care, stigma and racism, certainly are the highlights of the elevated rates,” Khan explained.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is having its effects as well, within the harm reduction world.
Khan said its deep impacts include lower testing numbers for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), along with difficulties in following up.
“A majority of the First Nations communities are under a lockdown. Travel is very restricted and access certainly is impacted,” he explained. “A lot of people may not have regular access to their bloodwork and follow-up and treatment, which is very, very damaging for people who need to be constantly on treatment.
“If you really want to see your virally suppressed HIV conditions, then you have to be constantly on treatment.”
Khan said there is the potential of a spike in Saskatchewan of STIs, including HIV, syphilis and hepatitis C once the pandemic settles.
