INJECTION SITE REACHES HALF OF TARGET GROUP

The Country's First Legal, Supervised Facility Has 2,100 Clients in the
Downtown Eastside

Vancouver's safe injection site on East Hastings Street is now serving
close to 50 per cent of the estimated number of intravenous drug users in
the Downtown Eastside and 40 per cent of its clients are women.

Chris Buchner, a manager with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, told
participants in the World AIDS Day forum at the Carnegie Centre Monday that
Canada's first legal supervised safe injection site (called Insite) now has
2,100 clients out of an estimated IV drug user population of 4,700 in the
Downtown Eastside. Insite now logs approximately 500 visits from drug users
daily.

That's an increase from early November (when it recorded a daily average of
450 visits) and Buchner says the facility, which opened Sept. 21, will most
likely be at peak capacity at 600 visits a day. Insite got close to that on
Nov. 26 when it recorded 560 visits in 18 hours.

Sixty per cent of those visits are from repeat users who may use the
injection site two or more times a day. Nurses at the facility have been
able to help in 36 overdoses and are getting two or three detox requests
each day from drug addicts who want to break their addictions.

Forty per cent of Insite visitors are injecting cocaine, 40 per cent shoot
heroin, 10 per cent are morphine or prescription drug injectors and the
final 10 per cent use several substances.

Buchner said researchers are working on recruiting 1,000 of the registered
users at the facility for a detailed study on IV drug user demographics. So
far, Buchner said, Insite is serving a full range of drug users, from
people who have been injecting drugs for a decade or more, to casual users.
The average age of Insite visitors is the late 30s to early 40s and three
clients are youths.

Researchers are also collecting data on how many safe injection site users
have HIV or AIDS, and Buchner said he expects to have a report ready in six
months.

The injection site is a three-year pilot project funded by Health Canada
and the provincial health ministry. It is expected to cost approximately $2
million per year to run.

In the meantime, the number of women infected with AIDS in B.C. is
increasing at an alarming rate, said B.C. Persons With AIDS Society
chairman Glen Bradford.

"That's one of the major issues right now," Bradford said in an interview.
"They're not aware they need to start protecting themselves."

Statistics from the Positive Women's Network say the number of HIV-positive
women in B.C. has more than doubled in the past decade and now stands at
more than 1,300. Women now account for 26 per cent of HIV-positive test
reports, compared with just 10 per cent less than a decade ago. Nearly 50
per cent of the women in B.C. who tested positive in 2002 are between the
ages of 15 and 29. The primary method of HIV infection among women is
heterosexual sex.

Eight million women worldwide now have AIDS and of the 15,754 Canadians
with the disease, 6.9 per cent are women.

The Positive Women's Network launched an online resource for women with
HIV/AIDS Monday. The Web site at www.pwn-wave.ca is a resource and
education provider for women with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers, families
and communities.

That's good news for women because Bradford believes it's critical that
heterosexual women understand they face huge risks when having unprotected
sex, He noted that one of the key ways to reduce the number of women with
the fatal disease is to empower them to be able to say no to sex or to
demand their partners use contraceptives.

"We need to find ways to empower women to make healthier decisions for
themselves," Bradford said.