By Angela Hill

HIV rates still rising in province

Dec 1, 2010 | 3:58 PM

HIV rates in Saskatchewan continued to increase in 2009, says Saskatchewan’s HIV Strategy.

“It still is alarming, it still is disproportionately younger women (affected),” said Dr. Moira McKinnon, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer.

Of the 200 new cases in the province in 2009, 77 per cent were among intravenous drug users.

There was also one case of a baby being born HIV positive.

“We had a steep increase in what we call mother-child pairs–the number of positive women, having children,” McKinnon said.

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“Most of them, thankfully, are negative children … we have well over 40 mother-child pairs in Saskatchewan now and only a couple of those are positive children.”

Saskatchewan still has the highest rates of HIV in Canada, at more than twice the national average.

Not only are HIV rates on the rise, but the Ministry of Health is starting to see a rise in the number of HIV co-infections such as Hepatitis C and tuberculosis (TB).

In Saskatchewan, 70 per cent of people with HIV also have Hepatitis C.

“There has been a marked increase in admissions to hospital of HIV patients … (they) are being admitted quite ill,” McKinnon said.

“Their immune system is pretty wrecked already and alarmingly, a lot of TB is beginning to happen. We’re seeing that and worldwide, TB and HIV go together, so I think we are starting to see the rise of TB in our communities as well.”

This increase in HIV with co-infections is leading to more cases of AIDS, she said.

“It’s starting to reflect in the death statistics, not hugely yet because those statistics are difficult to have, they are two years old … There is an increase and certainly the clinicians are reporting an increase in morbidity and mortality,” McKinnon said.

“A study done in Saskatoon showed that 15 per cent of patients admitted with HIV actually died in hospital.”

McKinnon said having the strategy provides hope.

“We really need to know we are working with this population in the right way. One of the big issues is this population doesn’t access the health system and they don’t access the health system because they feel discriminated against … it’s difficult to connect with impoverished and IDU population,” she said.

Read more on the new provincial HIV strategy.

ahill@panow.com