Moira McKinnon -- the chief medical health officer in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan -- on Monday called for efforts to address the increasing number of new HIV cases recorded in the province, the Regina Leader-Post reports.
According to McKinnon, there were 174 new HIV cases recorded in 2008, a 40% increase from the 124 new cases reported in 2007. McKinnon said it is "worrying" to see an increase in cases and that it is "particularly worrying to see the trend in the increase is in younger people," including infants. Young women comprised one of the largest increases in 2008, with a significant portion of new cases recorded among aboriginal women and young women as young as age 15, McKinnon said. Additionally, practices such as injection drug use and unsafe sex were the main contributors to the increase, with 60% of new HIV cases occurring among injection drug users.
McKinnon said there were steady increases in new HIV cases in the years leading up to 2006 but that there was also a slower growth rate of about 20 new cases annually. She said that health workers "actually went out and looked harder" for new cases to address the slow growth rate, which provided them with the 2008 increase. However, "there are cases out there that we know that we haven't found, so we're aiming to find them," McKinnon said. Canada's national HIV prevalence is about 10 cases per 100,000 people. Saskatchewan's prevalence is currently at 17 cases per 100,000 people, an increase from five per 100,000 in 2003, McKinnon said, adding that the situation is "very serious."