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."