(Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

Fighting stigma

Annual walk marks HIV/AIDS Awareness Week

Nov 28, 2019 | 5:06 PM

Organizers of Thursday’s HIV/AIDS Awareness walk have two key messages for the public.

Get tested to know your status. And be compassionate.

“You are not going to get HIV from being friends with someone who has it, from having them in your car, from hugging them,” Shauna-Rae Brahniuk, HIV educator with the P.A. Métis Women’s Association told paNOW.

She explained HIV-positive people taking anti-retroviral medication can reduce the levels of the virus in their blood to levels so low it cannot be transmitted to others.

“If you’re on medications you can live a long normal, happy healthy life,” Brahniuk said.

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The Prince Albert area has the highest rate of HIV in Canada with 64.4 HIV positive people per 100,000. Nationwide that rate is 6.5 per 100,000, while across Saskatchewan it’s 14.1 per 100,000.

Injection drug use is responsible for most new cases across the province.

On Thursday, the approximately two dozen people who gathered at city hall also took time to honour those who have died from HIV/AIDS.

“This whole week is to bring awareness to our brothers and sisters, you know, go get tested,” Fred Simpson a P.A. support service worker with AIDS Saskatoon, said. “But it’s also to remember our brothers and sisters who were lost with this terrible disease. We’ve been fighting this for over 50 years.”

Jordan Marasty, with the P.A. Métis Women’s Association, led the walk through downtown Prince Albert, holding one end of a red banner encouraging people to get tested. As a peer support worker, he counsels people about what to expect from the disease he’s been living with for nine years.

“It’s not a death sentence. That’s what they would say back then, but it’s different now,” he said.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom