Pubdate: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) Copyright: 2003, The Globe and Mail Company Contact: http://www.globeandmail.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168 Author: Andre Picard NATIVE DRUG USERS HARDEST HIT BY HIV Testing Positive At Twice The Rate Of Non-Aboriginals, Researchers Say Two in every five aboriginal intravenous drug users in Vancouver have already contracted HIV-AIDS, an infection rate as high as many of the hardest-hit communities in Africa, according to newly published data. Worse yet, aboriginal IV drug users are getting infected at twice the rate of non-aboriginals, damning proof, researchers say, that Canada is losing the public health battle against AIDS. "These are truly astonishing and alarming statistics," said Patricia Spittal, a medical anthropologist and lead author of a study published in today's edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. "We have developing world statistics and we have developing world conditions right here in one of the wealthiest countries in the world," she said. Dr. Spittal, who has worked in East Africa and on Canada's West Coast, said she was stunned by the similarities in the epidemic among marginalized groups, and is troubled by the apathy of Canadian health-policy makers. The new research is derived from the Vancouver Injection Drug User Study, one of the largest projects of its kind. Vancouver researchers have been tracking 1,437 IV drug users who were recruited between May of 1996 and December of 2000. The new data, based on 941 of the participants (including 230 natives), are the first to look specifically at the situation of aboriginal IV drug users, a community that, anecdotally, everyone believes is being devastated by HIV-AIDS. It shows that among drug users who were HIV-negative when they were recruited, 21.1 per cent of aboriginals and 10.7 per cent of non-aboriginals have since been infected. "We all know the situation is bad but, hopefully, the numbers will provide the evidence we need to convince governments to act," said Art Zoccole, executive director of the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network. "These statistics represent the urgency of dealing with HIV-AIDS in the aboriginal community." Mr. Zoccole said that while IV drug users congregate in big cities such as Vancouver, they travel around the country, acting as conduits for the spread of HIV-AIDS. An estimated 50,000 Canadians have been infected with HIV-AIDS, and there are an estimated 4,200 new infections annually. Although natives are 2.8 per cent of the population, more than 6 per cent of new HIV-AIDS cases were in the aboriginal community in 2001, a seven-fold increase since 1990, according to Health Canada. While most Canadians are infected through sexual contact, intravenous drug use is one of the principal transmission routes among natives, accounting for 65 per cent of cases among women and 27 per cent of cases among men. (This compares with 6 per cent among non-aboriginals.) The study reveals various factors that can predict which IV drug users are most likely to contract HIV-AIDS. The factors include homelessness, having been in jail in the previous six months and frequency of injection, particularly with speedballs (a mixture of cocaine and heroin) among women and cocaine among men. In fact, those who inject speedballs are more than three times as likely to contract HIV-AIDS than those who inject heroin alone. Martin Schechter, head of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS, said the new data demonstrate that public health programs designed to tackle the epidemic are woefully short of funds. He said the new findings "should ring alarm bells in Ottawa." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens