HIV Testing is Our Right: Black People on the Frontline of HIV

February 7 is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD), an important date marking how HIV disproportionately affects Black people in Canada and around the world.

The African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) Steering Committee – Canada’s leading community-academic partnership committed to ending HIV in Black populations and across the country - calls on all levels of government, provincial healthcare partners, hospitals and research institutions to work toward improving and promoting access to HIV testing within Black communities.

In Canada, Black people make up less than 5 per cent of Canada's total population, yet accounts for 25 per cent of new HIV infections.

HIV testing is our right, and there is an urgent need to expand and support self-testing efforts that will allow people to safely know their status, in a place that suits them and connects them to the care they need in their community.  

The ACB Steering Committee is also calling on the federal government to reverse its decision that halted funding to programs that provided free self-test HIV kits. These HIV testing kits have been proven to be effective for people in marginalized communities or anyone who doesn't feel comfortable or has faced racism or stigma in traditional health care settings.

The ACB Steering Committee is a landmark implementation science partnership team comprising of researchers, community-based organizations, people with lived experiences, including people living with HIV, and policy makers in Ontario and Alberta.

The committee is comprised of the Toronto-based organizations, Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Centre, and Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention, the Alberta-based Ribbon Rouge Foundation, HIV Edmonton, Safelink Alberta, the MOYO Health and Community Services in Brampton, Ontario and REACH Nexus at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solution at St. Michael’s Hospital (Unity Health Toronto).

For the last two years the ACB Steering Committee has worked closely with REACH Nexus to guide the design and implementation of two national HIV self-testing programs: I’m Ready and Community Link.

The programs were a significant milestone in the history of Canadian medicine, reaching close to 100,000 people to get tested and with the I’m Ready program we estimate we have identified more than 100 people who were previously undiagnosed with HIV.

Together the ACB Steering committee and REACH Nexus will continue to support and transform the HIV response for Black communities by reaching the undiagnosed, implementing and scaling up new testing options, strengthening connections to care, and improving access to options for prevention (PrEP and PEP) and ending HIV stigma.