Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced Monday nearly $18 million to expand HIV testing in Canada, with a significant portion of the funding going to self-administration kits.
Of the $17.9 million, $8 million will go toward purchasing HIV self-test kits and distributing them to community organizations, Duclos said at the 24th International AIDS Conference in Montreal.
The other $9.9 million will go to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg to expand HIV testing in northern, remote or isolated (NRI) communities.
“HIV self-test kits offer a safe, reliable and confidential way for people to test for HIV infection, while significantly reducing the barriers to seeking care often created by stigma and discrimination,” the government said in a statement.
Health Canada approved the first HIV self-test in late 2020. It’s a one-minute finger-prick blood test from Richmond, British Columbia-based bioLytical Laboratories Inc.
Duclos said the government is looking to apply lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to HIV/AIDS.
“We know that HIV is preventable, but HIV infection rates remain high in Canada and in other countries. Ensuring people have access to testing, treatment and care can help reverse this trend.
“Removing the barrier is the key to ending the AIDS pandemic.”
Ottawa urged to increase HIV-AIDS spending
In October 2020, the federal government began providing free rapid tests to provinces and territories. For many Canadians, rapid antigen tests have replaced large-scale polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests as fewer people became eligible for them due to high demand during the Omicron wave.
In June, the CBC learned that Ottawa was moving to end the distribution of rapid tests for COVID-19 in the provinces and territories by the end of the year.
The government estimates there are nearly 63,000 people living with HIV in Canada, and 1 in 10 of them don’t know they have the virus.
Ahead of the Montreal conference, a coalition of HIV/AIDS organizations called on the government to increase annual federal spending on HIV/AIDS from $73 million to $100 million.
Last week, the government pledged $15 million to the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
The five-day 2022 AIDS conference ends on Tuesday.
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