HIV drugs' success spurs concern about apathy

The fact HIV is no longer a death sentence has some Sudbury health-care workers worried the disease isnt being taken as seriously as it should.

People with HIV can live long, healthy lives, says social worker Linda Mansfield-Smith of the Sudbury Regional Hospitals Haven Clinic, which treats 200 people living with HIV or AIDS. By 2015, half the people living with HIV in Ontario are expected to be 50 or older a phenomenon known as the "greying of AIDS."

But Mansfield-Smith said she's worried those positive outcomes are giving young adults the wrong impression.

"I mean when you're young, you are invincible and you don't realize that you can contract this. Or if you are aware that there are treatments, sometimes people think, Well, I can just go out and get treatment and I'll beokay whether I contract HIV or not, " she said. "And those are both very dangerous scenarios."

Mansfield-Smith said living with HIV is still a death sentence for people who don't get good care, including access to antiretroviral medications.

Education waning

The flipside of some young peoples increasingly cavalier attitudes toward HIV is that education about the virus seems to be on the back-burner because its no longer seen as an issue, said Vicki Ridout Kett, the manager of education and community services at the non-profit Access AIDS Network.

"I really think we have to invent new ways of getting the message across, and I also think we have to allow populations within the parents ranks to come to terms that this is still a real issue," Kett said.

She said educating young people about HIV-AIDS and prevention is still extremely important.

Ontario sees 1,000 new HIV diagnoses each year, according to a report this week from Casey House, a specialty HIV-AIDS hospital in Toronto. The number of Ontarians carrying the virus rose 31 per cent between 2003 and 2008, the report said, with one estimate putting the diseases prevalence across the province at 26,600 people.

Infection rates are highest in Toronto, where one person in 120 has HIV or AIDS. Alarmingly, projections from the Ontario Health Ministrys HIV monitoring unit suggest 44 per cent of heterosexual Ontarians who are infected with HIV havent been diagnosed and so dont know they carry the virus.

Thursday is World AIDS Day.