And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (S.I.S.I.S.) writes: AIDS GROWS AMONG ABORIGINALS Canadian Press, January 16, 1998 by Mary Jo Laforest [S.I.S.I.S. note: The following mainstream news article may contain biased or distorted information and may be missing pertinent facts and/or context. It is provided for reference only.] EDMONTON (CP) - The number of aboriginal people with HIV is growing every year, and health professionals fear it could reach epidemic proportions if measures aren't taken to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. "It's one of the most important public health problems happening in Western Canada," says Dr. Stan Houston, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton. Since 1993, there has been a steady increase in the number of aboriginals testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Houston says. There is no cure for AIDS, but there are drugs that can inhibit or slow the onset of the disease. More than one-third of new HIV cases diagnosed in Edmonton are aboriginal, Houston says. In Saskatchewan, 47.6 per cent of new HIV cases were aboriginal in 1997, compared with 10.5 per cent in 1993, says Dr. Shauna Hudson of Health Canada in Regina. National figures are hard to pin down because ethnic information is not always collected with HIV tests. But the same factors that contribute to higher rates of alcoholism and imprisonment among aboriginal people make them more likely than other Canadians to get HIV. Some inject drugs to try to escape the poverty and hopelessness of their lives, and dirty needles are a major source of infection. "It's an evil reality," says Arlo Yuzicapi Fayant of All Nations Hope AIDS network in Regina. "If we don't get it in the ghettos that exist in the urban centres, were getting it from being incarcerated." And there's no telling how many aboriginal people in prisons, on reserves and walking the streets of cities have HIV and don't know it. "I think there are undoubtedly people who have not been diagnosed because of fear of coming forward and being tested," Hudson says. "The potential for it to become a huge problem if programs aren't in place is really significant." Houston, who worked in Africa for a number of years, says "precious little" is being done in Canada to combat the spread of HIV among aboriginals. He'd like to see easy access to free condoms and needle exchanges for drug users. "There are lots of countries in Africa where health spending is far, far less than in Canada yet they have far more effective strategies in place there than in native communities here." Len Tomah, regional chief of health for the Assembly of First Nations, says chiefs and band councillors are doing their best with what they have to fight the problem. He said Health Canada only gives $2.5 million to First Nations for AIDS-HIV programs across the country. "You have to get the information and the education and the training and whatever out on First Nations in order to be effective," he said from Ottawa. "I don't feel myself that right now that it's happening because of a shortage of resources." Few chiefs put AIDS-HIV at the top of their priority lists because they are overwhelmed with other pressing problems, says Yuzicapi Fayant. "There's housing, sewage, water treatment, pollution, oppression, violence, sex abuse," she says. "HIV isn't large and squeaky because it's incubating and it's dormant. The numbers aren't falling over yet at the community level. The chiefs are crazy busy." While young people have received lots of information about AIDS over the last five years, they have few or no people in their lives modelling healthy behaviour, Yuzicapi Fayant says. "You can say all the good messages, but unless it's reinforced in believable episodes in your immediate life, it doesn't mean anything." Albert McLeod of the Manitoba Aboriginal Aids Task Force says there needs to be more education about the spread of HIV through injection drug use because nearly half of new cases stem from the problem. "More aboriginal women are being infected through injection drug use," McLeod says. "My concern is that if the epidemic reaches the child-bearing population were going to have a very big problem that's not going to be easy to deal with." :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
