Federal government announces $18M for HIV testing at Montreal AIDS conference - CP24 Toronto's Breaking News

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Monday that the government will invest $17.9 million to increase access to HIV testing in remote communities and among hard-to-reach populations.

But advocates who work on issues related to HIV say the announcement, made at AIDS 2022, the 24th International AIDS Conference in Montreal, needs to be followed by more action. 

Duclos said the government will use $8 million to fund the distribution of self-testing kits, which can be acquired anonymously and used at home, while the other $9.9 million will go toward expanding HIV testing in northern, remote or isolated communities.

"We know that HIV is preventable, yet the rates of HIV infections remain high in Canada and in other countries. Providing individuals with access to testing, treatment and care can help reverse this trend. Removing barriers is the key to ending the AIDS pandemic," Duclos told reporters. 

He said access to testing – and the treatment it enables – is more difficult in some communities, including Indigenous and racialized communities.

Jody Jollimore, executive director of the Community-Based Research Centre, a Vancouver-based organization that advocates for the health of people of diverse sexualities, said the announcement is a good first step.

"Obviously, this was not what we were hoping for," Jollimore told reporters at the same news conference.

His organization is part of a coalition of community groups that has been calling on Ottawa to increase funding for addressing HIV from around $73 million a year, to $100 million a year. 

Jollimore said that while helping ensure people know their HIV status is one of the most important actions the government can take – in part because treatment can prevent people from passing the disease to their partners – more action is needed.

"On its own, it is not enough. Communities affected by HIV continue to face stigma and discrimination that put us at an elevated risk of HIV infection and acts as a barrier to testing treatment and care," he said, adding that access to prevention tools, like pre-exposure prophylaxis, is inconsistent across Canada. 

He said an estimated 17,000 people in Canada have HIV but don't know their status. 

Ken Monteith, executive director of a network of AIDS organizations in Quebec called COCQ-SIDA, said the federal government also needs to address the criminalization of non-disclosure of HIV status and sex work as well as the war on drugs, which can make prevention more difficult. 

"Criminalization, at all levels, prevents us from protecting the health of our communities," he told reporters.

Last week, Justice Minister David Lametti said the government will study changing the law that allows people to be prosecuted for aggravated sexual assault if they do not disclose their HIV status, even if treatment has rendered them unable to transmit the virus.

Ottawa estimates that 63,000 people are living with HIV in Canada.

Earlier Monday, the director-general of the World Health Organization told the conference that growing inequality could reverse a decade of progress made in the fight against HIV.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who addressed the AIDS 2022 conference by video, said the "overlapping crises" of COVID-19, inflation and cuts to foreign aid by wealthy countries are accelerating inequality and disrupting health services. 

While the number of HIV infections and deaths related to AIDS are much lower than they were a decade ago, progress could be easily reversed, he added.

Globally, approximately 1.5 million people were infected with HIV last year and an estimated 650,000 deaths were linked to AIDS, according to the United Nations. 

"Access to life-saving prevention tools, testing and treatment, whether for HIV, COVID-19 and now monkeypox, too, often relies on chance: where you were born, the colour of your skin and how much you earn," Tedros said.

The international AIDS conference runs until Tuesday at Montreal's downtown convention centre, Palais des congrès de Montréal. More than 9,000 delegates from around the world were scheduled to attend in person, with another 2,000 registered to participate remotely. 

AIDS conference organizers have criticized the Canadian government for denying visas to hundreds of delegates and for International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan's decision to withdraw his participation on short notice.

Asked about the visa denials, Duclos described them as a "collective tragedy." 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2022.

Adblock test (Why?)

Federal government announces $18M for HIV testing at Montreal AIDS conference - CP24 Toronto's Breaking News
Read More

Canada expanding funding for HIV screening, including $8M for self-testing kits - CBC News

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos on Monday announced nearly $18 million to expand HIV testing in Canada, with a substantial portion of the funding going toward self-administered kits.

Of the $17.9 million, $8 million will go toward purchasing HIV self-testing kits and distributing them to community organizations, Duclos said at the 24th International AIDS Conference in Montreal.

The other $9.9 million will go to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg for expansion of HIV testing in northern, remote or isolated (NRI) communities.

"HIV self-test kits offer a safe, reliable and confidential way for people to screen for HIV infection while significantly reducing the barriers to seeking care often created by stigma and discrimination," a government news release reads.

Health Canada approved the first HIV self-test in late 2020. It's a one-minute, finger-prick blood test from Richmond, B.C., company bioLytical Laboratories Inc.

Duclos said the government is looking to apply lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to HIV/AIDS.

"We know that HIV is preventable, yet the rate of HIV infections remains high in Canada and in other countries. Providing individuals with access to testing, treatment and care can help reverse this trend.

"Removing barrier is the key to ending the AIDS pandemic."

Ottawa urged to up spending on HIV-AIDS

In October 2020, the federal government began providing rapid tests to provinces and territories for free. For many Canadians, rapid antigen tests were replacing wide-scale polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, as fewer people became eligible for them because of high demand during the Omicron wave. 

In June, CBC learned that Ottawa is moving toward ending distribution of COVID-19 rapid tests to the provinces and territories by the end of the year.

The government estimates there are nearly 63,000 people living with HIV in Canada, and 1 in 10 of those aren't aware they have the virus.

Prior to the conference in Montreal, a coalition of HIV/AIDS organizations called on the government to boost annual federal spending on HIV/AIDS from $73 million to $100 million.

The government pledged $15 million last week to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The five-day 2022 AIDS conference ends Tuesday.

Adblock test (Why?)

Canada expanding funding for HIV screening, including $8M for self-testing kits - CBC News
Read More

Monkeypox confirmed in person who used Toronto shelter system - CTV News Toronto

One person who recently used Toronto’s shelter system is isolating after testing positive for monkeypox, health officials have confirmed.

In an email to CP24.com, Toronto Public Health (TPH) said they are “currently aware of one confirmed monkeypox case in a person that recently attended a Toronto shelter.”

The health unit declined to say which shelter was involved and also noted that an outbreak is defined as two or more cases that are epidemiologically linked.

As of Sunday evening, the health unit was only aware of a single confirmed case.

The affected individual has been transferred to the city’s COVID-19 isolation and recovery site, which is also being used to help people who need to isolate because of monkeypox.

“The City of Toronto continues to work with health experts to reduce the spread of COVID-19, monkeypox and other transmissible diseases in high risk settings,” TPH said in a statement. “To support shelters in limiting case numbers, the shelter system continues to practice stringent Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) measures. This includes conducting enhanced cleaning protocols and use of personal protective equipment, such as gloves, gowns and protective masks.”

The virus is typically spread through prolonged close contact with respiratory droplets from breathing, talking, coughing or sneezing or skin-to-skin contact with lesions, blisters, rashes or contact with objects, fabrics and surfaces used by someone who has the virus.

The virus can enter the body through breaks in the skin or through the eyes and mouth.

Someone with monkeypox can usually pass on the virus when they develop a skin rash or lesions, but it may also spread when they have early symptoms including fever and headache.

Anyone can get the virus, but most cases so far have been in men who have sex with men.

Federal health officials, as well as the World Health Organization recently suggested that people consider limiting the number of sex partners they have given that the virus appears to be spreading through intimate contact.

The city has been running vaccine clinics for those populations most at risk. 

Public Health Ontario logged 367 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the province as of Thursday, with nearly 78 per cent of those cases in Toronto.

Toronto Public health is advising anyone who thinks they may have monkeypox to isolate right away and contact their health-care provider to get tested.

-With files from The Canadian Press 

Adblock test (Why?)

Monkeypox confirmed in person who used Toronto shelter system - CTV News Toronto
Read More

The WHO says we must work together to fight monkeypox. African doctors are skeptical - CBC News

As an infectious diseases specialist in Atlanta, Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji spent much of 2020 on the front lines of the COVID-19 battle raging in the U.S. 

When a vaccine arrived in December that year, she felt some relief. But also, fear. 

"I had seen what COVID was capable of doing to people the age of my parents," Titanji said. 

"I was absolutely terrified because from the moment I had access to vaccination up until the moment my parents had access to vaccination, it was eight months."

In Cameroon, where Titanji is from, her parents didn't get a first coronavirus jab until August 2021. By that time, most Canadian and American adults were well past their second shots. 

"It was the most nerve wracking experience of living in fear that they would get COVID," she said. 

Despite the World Health Organization's pleas to rich countries to stop stockpiling COVID vaccines and share with the lower-income nations – particularly in Africa – global health experts agree that we failed. 

Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an infectious diseases specialist in Atlanta, says no vaccines or antiviral drugs have been available when she has dealt with monkeypox in her home country of Cameroon. (Boghuma Kabisen Titanji )

They also aren't surprised, because the same inequitable distribution of vaccines and treatments has been a pattern for decades. 

On July 23, the WHO declared monkeypox a "public health emergency of international concern" – and doctors fear the same pattern will repeat itself as Canada, the U.S. and European countries rush to vaccinate at-risk populations. 

They're using a vaccine originally manufactured for smallpox, which has been eradicated. In Canada, it's called Imvamune, and small quantities were stockpiled years ago in case smallpox ever returned. Imvamune is also approved to vaccinate people against monkeypox. 

Yet monkeypox has been endemic in several African nations for 50 years. Dozens have died this year alone, Titanji said, but no vaccine has ever been made available, except for targeted studies involving health-care workers.   

When she dealt with monkeypox outbreaks in Cameroon, she said there was also no access to antivirals to treat the disease.

"If you diagnose someone with monkeypox [in Africa], you provide supportive care. So basically, you make the diagnosis and you tell them to isolate and, you know, take paracetamol for their fever … and to rest and recover." 

Although anyone can become infected through close contact with someone who has monkeypox or with personal items like bed linens, in countries outside Africa, the most at-risk population right now is men who have sex with men. In Africa, it has historically been spread primarily through contact with infected animals.

Lack of concern for illness in Africa

If a pandemic the scale of COVID didn't galvanize a global response that was equitable, Titanji said, she's skeptical that the response to monkeypox — not to mention future outbreaks of other diseases — will treat Africa any differently. 

"The issue is that there has been a generalized neglect of health equity in Africa," said Dr. Githinji Gitahi, head of Amref Health Africa, a group based in Nairobi, Kenya, working to improve health-care access across the continent. 

"The view is that as long as the health threats are limited to African communities, it is all right for the world not to worry."

WHO has 31m doses of smallpox vaccines (effective against Monkeypox), mostly kept in donor countries & intended as rapid response to any re-emergence of the disease, which was declared eradicated in 1980. Doses have never been released for any monkeypox outbreaks in Africa

—@daktari1

But if rich countries want to end epidemics that affect their own citizens, it's in their best interest to ensure low and middle income nations have the resources to stop the spread of disease, Gitahi said.

"Pandemics and disease threats start in a community," he said. "If you have one community that isn't safe, the whole world isn't safe in our current connectedness."

"This must change for not just for monkeypox but for other neglected diseases in low-income countries as the world is reminded yet again that health is an interconnected proposition," the WHO chief said. 

What's the solution?

One of the things that has to change is the monopoly that rich countries hold on vaccines and medications, including antivirals, African physicians and global health experts said. 

During COVID-19, donations through the vaccine-sharing program COVAX helped, but they arrived in African countries too late, said Gitahi. "People died as they waited for vaccines." 

In many cases, vaccines were unusable because they landed with "very little shelf life remaining." 

In addition, by the time they arrived, people who would previously have lined up to get vaccinated had lost both the sense of urgency and trust in the health-care system, with a perception that they were receiving vaccines rejected by rich countries, Gitahi added.

LISTEN | African doctors say monkeypox response is another example of vaccine inequity: 

CBC News2:44African doctors say monkeypox response is another example of vaccine inequity

Health experts say they're skeptical that the world has learned from COVID-19 as rich countries battle monkeypox outbreaks. (CBC The World This Weekend)

The path to even the playing field for low and middle-income countries, according to some experts, is to remove intellectual property protections on essential vaccines and treatments. 

Rich countries invest enormous amounts of money in vaccine manufacturing companies during emergencies, said Titanji. That gives them leverage to make funding contingent on giving lower and middle income countries an equal chance to buy them at a fair price, she said.

Dr. Mary Stephen, technical officer at the WHO Regional Office in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, says it's critical to develop Africa's capacity to manufacture its own vaccines and therapeutics. (Dr. Mary Stephen)

But an even better solution, experts said, is to make sure Africa is able to mount its own emergency responses to epidemics, rather than being forced to wait for charities and rich nations to act. 

"If we want to build a resilient system, there is much, much, much to do beyond just the donation of vaccines," said Dr. Mary Stephen, technical officer with the Health Emergencies Program at the WHO Regional Office in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. 

"Just imagine if …  countries on the continent were able to produce their own PPE, were able to produce their lab reagents, their test kits. [If] they were able to produce vaccines, medicines … it will go a long way," she said. 

An important step in building that self-reliance has been the opening of the "mRNA Vaccine Hub for Africa" in Capetown, South Africa, supported by WHO. Scientists there have produced its first batches of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. 

As Africa works toward health care self sufficiency, it's important for the world to remember that the continent has already made significant contributions to global health, Titanji said.

For instance, African participants in many clinical trials have enabled the development of HIV/AIDS treatments received by patients in rich countries, she said. 

Now that the world is confronted with monkeypox, Africa has decades of knowledge about the virus that wealthy nations are relying on, Titanji said. 

"It's 50 years of research by African scientists, sometimes with incredible challenges to publish this data," she said of monkeypox studies, including one on health-care workers in Congo that tested the effectiveness of the Imvamune vaccine. 

"We are building on that now to be able to address outbreaks in non-endemic countries, meanwhile, leaving the very people who contributed to that body of knowledge behind." 

Adblock test (Why?)

The WHO says we must work together to fight monkeypox. African doctors are skeptical - CBC News
Read More

New York declares monkeypox public health emergency - Good Morning America

Adblock test (Why?)

New York declares monkeypox public health emergency - Good Morning America
Read More

Living with long COVID - CGTN America

Adblock test (Why?)

Living with long COVID - CGTN America
Read More

The WHO says we must work together to fight monkeypox. African doctors are skeptical - CBC News

As an infectious diseases specialist in Atlanta, Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji spent much of 2020 on the front lines of the COVID-19 battle raging in the U.S. 

When a vaccine arrived in December that year, she felt some relief. But also, fear. 

"I had seen what COVID was capable of doing to people the age of my parents," Titanji said. 

"I was absolutely terrified because from the moment I had access to vaccination up until the moment my parents had access to vaccination, it was eight months."

In Cameroon, where Titanji is from, her parents didn't get a first coronavirus jab until August 2021. By that time, most Canadian and American adults were well past their second shots. 

"It was the most nerve wracking experience of living in fear that they would get COVID," she said. 

Despite the World Health Organization's pleas to rich countries to stop stockpiling COVID vaccines and share with the lower-income nations – particularly in Africa – global health experts agree that we failed. 

Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an infectious diseases specialist in Atlanta, says no vaccines or antiviral drugs have been available when she has dealt with monkeypox in her home country of Cameroon. (Boghuma Kabisen Titanji )

They also aren't surprised, because the same inequitable distribution of vaccines and treatments has been a pattern for decades. 

On July 23, the WHO declared monkeypox a "public health emergency of international concern" – and doctors fear the same pattern will repeat itself as Canada, the U.S. and European countries rush to vaccinate at-risk populations. 

They're using a vaccine originally manufactured for smallpox, which has been eradicated. In Canada, it's called Imvamune, and small quantities were stockpiled years ago in case smallpox ever returned. Imvamune is also approved to vaccinate people against monkeypox. 

Yet monkeypox has been endemic in several African nations for 50 years. Dozens have died this year alone, Titanji said, but no vaccine has ever been made available, except for targeted studies involving health-care workers.   

When she dealt with monkeypox outbreaks in Cameroon, she said there was also no access to antivirals to treat the disease.

"If you diagnose someone with monkeypox [in Africa], you provide supportive care. So basically, you make the diagnosis and you tell them to isolate and, you know, take paracetamol for their fever … and to rest and recover." 

Although anyone can become infected through close contact with someone who has monkeypox or with personal items like bed linens, in countries outside Africa, the most at-risk population right now is men who have sex with men. In Africa, it has historically been spread primarily through contact with infected animals.

Lack of concern for illness in Africa

If a pandemic the scale of COVID didn't galvanize a global response that was equitable, Titanji said, she's skeptical that the response to monkeypox — not to mention future outbreaks of other diseases — will treat Africa any differently. 

"The issue is that there has been a generalized neglect of health acuity in Africa," said Dr. Githinji Gitahi, head of Amref Health Africa, a Toronto-based group working to improve health-care access across the continent. 

"The view is that as long as the health threats are limited to African communities, it is all right for the world not to worry."

WHO has 31m doses of smallpox vaccines (effective against Monkeypox), mostly kept in donor countries & intended as rapid response to any re-emergence of the disease, which was declared eradicated in 1980. Doses have never been released for any monkeypox outbreaks in Africa

—@daktari1

But if rich countries want to end epidemics that affect their own citizens, it's in their best interest to ensure low and middle income nations have the resources to stop the spread of disease, Gitahi said.

"Pandemics and disease threats start in a community," he said. "If you have one community that isn't safe, the whole world isn't safe in our current connectedness."

"This must change for not just for monkeypox but for other neglected diseases in low-income countries as the world is reminded yet again that health is an interconnected proposition," the WHO chief said. 

What's the solution?

One of the things that has to change is the monopoly that rich countries hold on vaccines and medications, including antivirals, African physicians and global health experts said. 

During COVID-19, donations through the vaccine-sharing program COVAX helped, but they arrived in African countries too late, said Gitahi. "People died as they waited for vaccines." 

In many cases, vaccines were unusable because they landed with "very little shelf life remaining." 

In addition, by the time they arrived, people who would previously have lined up to get vaccinated had lost both the sense of urgency and trust in the health-care system, with a perception that they were receiving vaccines rejected by rich countries, Gitahi added.

LISTEN | African doctors say monkeypox response is another example of vaccine inequity: 

CBC News2:44African doctors say monkeypox response is another example of vaccine inequity

Health experts say they're skeptical that the world has learned from COVID-19 as rich countries battle monkeypox outbreaks. (CBC The World This Weekend)

The path to even the playing field for low and middle-income countries, according to some experts, is to remove intellectual property protections on essential vaccines and treatments. 

Rich countries invest enormous amounts of money in vaccine manufacturing companies during emergencies, said Titanji. That gives them leverage to make funding contingent on giving lower and middle income countries an equal chance to buy them at a fair price, she said.

Dr. Mary Stephen, technical officer at the WHO Regional Office in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, says it's critical to develop Africa's capacity to manufacture its own vaccines and therapeutics. (Dr. Mary Stephen)

But an even better solution, experts said, is to make sure Africa is able to mount its own emergency responses to epidemics, rather than being forced to wait for charities and rich nations to act. 

"If we want to build a resilient system, there is much, much, much to do beyond just the donation of vaccines," said Dr. Mary Stephen, technical officer with the Health Emergencies Program at the WHO Regional Office in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. 

"Just imagine if …  countries on the continent were able to produce their own PPE, were able to produce their lab reagents, their test kits. [If] they were able to produce vaccines, medicines … it will go a long way," she said. 

An important step in building that self-reliance has been the opening of the "mRNA Vaccine Hub for Africa" in Capetown, South Africa, supported by WHO. Scientists there have produced its first batches of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. 

As Africa works toward health care self sufficiency, it's important for the world to remember that the continent has already made significant contributions to global health, Titanji said.

For instance, African participants in many clinical trials have enabled the development of HIV/AIDS treatments received by patients in rich countries, she said. 

Now that the world is confronted with monkeypox, Africa has decades of knowledge about the virus that wealthy nations are relying on, Titanji said. 

"It's 50 years of research by African scientists, sometimes with incredible challenges to publish this data," she said of monkeypox studies, including one on health-care workers in Congo that tested the effectiveness of the Imvamune vaccine. 

"We are building on that now to be able to address outbreaks in non-endemic countries, meanwhile, leaving the very people who contributed to that body of knowledge behind." 

Adblock test (Why?)

The WHO says we must work together to fight monkeypox. African doctors are skeptical - CBC News
Read More