New data says more Manitobans getting HIV, with higher proportions of women, Indigenous people

Manitoba has seen a sharp increase in HIV rates over the past four years — and the doctors who have been tracking the data say the situation is likely to get worse.

The Manitoba HIV Program unveiled its 2018-2021 report findings Thursday — World AIDS Day and Indigenous Awareness Week — by highlighting an overrepresentation of Indigenous people living with HIV, and more women being diagnosed.

"This is the best data we've ever put together. I think it tells us a lot about a population at risk," Manitoba HIV Program director Dr. Ken Kasper said during a media briefing Wednesday at Winnipeg's Nine Circles Community Health Centre.

The number of people newly diagnosed with HIV and living in the province increased from 111 in 2018 to 169 in 2021, an increase of 52 per cent.

Kasper and his team are still collecting data for 2022, but he expects those numbers to go way up. He estimates Manitoba will see more than 200 new diagnoses of HIV this year.

"The goal in Canada in 2023 was to have 500 new people diagnosed," he said. "The way things are going in Manitoba in 2022, we'll have over 200 of those 500 cases. And clearly, they are not going to meet their targets."

The rate of new HIV transmissions in 2020 was 4.0 per 100,000 people, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Manitoba sits three times above the national average, coming it at 12.2 per 100,000 people.

Kasper estimates that rate will be even higher in 2022, potentially four to five times higher than the rest of the country.

The "burden of HIV," according to Kasper, is in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, with more than 65 per cent of people diagnosed with the virus in Manitoba last year.

The number of new HIV diagnoses in the Prairie Mountain Health Regional Health Authority dropped the past few years, but Kasper expects that number will rise in 2022.

The growing proportion of females acquiring HIV is also troublesome, with half of the new diagnoses being female.

This is way up compared to the national average in 2020, which saw one in three females make up the total number of new HIV diagnoses.

The average age of a female contracting HIV also dropped from 39 in 2018 to 32 in 2021, according to the report.

It also dropped for males, albeit slightly from 38.5 years old to 36.5 years old.