Positive Living Society of British Columbia (Formally BCPWA)

Cover Story: Treatment Activists take on the drug companies - The High Cost of Survival; 04 THINK + Opinion & Editorial. BCPWA

Around the time of the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Julio Montaner, the president-elect of the International AIDS Society and head of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, proposed that everyone infected with HIV be treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, as a means to reduce the transmission of HIV based on the idea that as HAART reduces the amount of HIV in a person's bloodstream, they become less infectious. The British Columbia Persons with AIDS Society supports the provision of HAART to all who want it and benefit from its use, they also believe that the eradication of HIV requires a complex, multi-faceted approach.

Summary Draft of The BC Persons with AIDS Society's Strategic Plan, 2005 - 2010. The document will guide and inform the work of the Society over the next five years. Please note that this Plan does not represent a rigid and fixed document, it should be considered as a dynamic and flexible text that is informed and guided by the membership of the Society and the emerging issues and ever-changing nature of the HIV/AIDS Community. Provision of Services to Members The vast majority of the Society

The British Columbia Persons with AIDS Society presented its position on AIDS funding priorities to the Federal Government on October 27, 2003. The Society believes that up to that point the Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS (CHSA) had been successful especially in comparison to other countries. However the Strategy is no longer sufficiently funded especially given HIV's move into new and often more difficult to reach populations. With 4,200 new infections each year, HIV is costing Canada $600 million in direct future medical costs and if the current rate of infection were reduced to 1,700, $1.4 billion would be saved in the next five years. The Society recommends that the budget of the CSHA be increased to $125 million per year to fund the scale of response necessary to beat HIV/AIDS in Canada.