Kelowna, BC Canada
2:30PM on Saturday, November 20th, 2010
Okanagan Rainbow Coalition Center
1476 Water Street, near the downtown bus terminal.
Refreshments, social and movie (TBD) to follow.
For more info contact creativecatherine@gmail.com
or visit our Facebook page http://tinyurl.com/KelownaTDOR2010
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Sunday, November 14, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
WARRANTY: The information presented on this blog, links or references to other groups (including, but not limited to, information and events they thereafter provide), or events on this blog is provided at the readers own risk. No claims are made about non Okanagan College Pride Group's events and information (including, reliability, validity or safety of those two). No liability is to be given to the Okanagan College Pride Group, its management and/or executive, or members for information or/and events regardless of provided by the Okanagan College Pride Group, linked to, or provided on the behalf of some other group, organization, an individual person, or some other form of source.
Topic for discussion: AIDS/HIV Awareness
There are approx. 58000 people (of all walks of sexuality including straights/heterosexuals) infected with AIDS/HIV currently living in Canada. 27% of people that are infected are unaware that they are infected. 51% of those that test positive for AIDS/HIV are males that have sex with other males. (source for all the above: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/aids-sida/populations-eng.php#men.) There are approx. between 2300 and 4500 new cases in Canada of HIV/AIDS each year (http://www.avert.org/canada-hiv.htm, please note the reliability and validity of this source was not verified). Population of Canada is 33,873,357 of which 49% are males. 2% of the male population identifies themselves as gay or bi-sexual (this is a conservative estimate often stated): the larger this actual number is the lower the infection rate will be under these following calculations.
Very rough calculations:
33,873,357 x .49 = 16,597,944.93
16,597,944.93 x .02 = 331,958.8986
58,000 x .51 = 29,580
29,580 x .27 = 7,986.6
7986.6/331,958.8986 = 0.024059002
0.024059002 x 100 = 2.4059002%
There are several problems with this figure, a main problem with this figure is that because of the use of drugs many people can live many years while being infected and these figures are overly accumulative and therefore makes it seems statistically that all of the the 29,580 are currently sexual active in the gay and bi populations while in fact they (i.e., some to many) may not have been for years or decades. Another main problem is that it assumes that even if all this 58,000 are still sexually active (and there are no unknown cases) that only those unware that they are infected would continue to have sex (and those who would know either wouldn't have sex or would have sex with those that are also already infected).
Using the figure of 2,300 new cases per year (to attemp to reduce the accumulative affect):
2,300 x .51 = 1173
1173/331,958.8986
0.003533569 x 100 = 0.3533569%
The problem with using the number of new cases is it it presumes that these individuals will still continue to be sexually active (something hopefully doubtful) and it assumes time has remained constant (not going forward and the numbers of infected persons do not accumulated or infected persons do not die: needless to say, both assumptions being wrong). And, in reality if they stop being sexually active there would still be those that are unaware that they are infected and who are sexually active. It also presumes that all past infected people are known and 100% have stopped being sexually active with non-infected people (common sense would say this is, sadly, doubtful). What needs to be asked is 'on any random snapshot day how many infected gay or bi-sexual men are sexually active with non-infected men?' (what is meant by this is who are or will be sexually active for the present and statistically presumably the future).
It would seem that given the two data above would give a range of potentially still sexually active AIDS/HIV gay or bi-sexual males (who will have sex with non-infected males) maybe between 0.3533569% (this would be 1 out of approx. 284 partners) and 2.4059002% (approx. 1 out of 42 partners).
Interesting Reading:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/11/24/f-aids-hiv-global-epidemic.html
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/diseases-maladies/hiv-vih-eng.php#hivc
Yearly increases by cases and rates by Specific Geographical Areas and other demographics:
http://www.bccdc.ca/util/about/annreport/default.htm
*1 in 40 gay men in Vancouver study unaware of HIV status:CBC News
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/1-40-gay-men-vancouver-study-unaware-hiv.html
Very rough calculations:
33,873,357 x .49 = 16,597,944.93
16,597,944.93 x .02 = 331,958.8986
58,000 x .51 = 29,580
29,580 x .27 = 7,986.6
7986.6/331,958.8986 = 0.024059002
0.024059002 x 100 = 2.4059002%
There are several problems with this figure, a main problem with this figure is that because of the use of drugs many people can live many years while being infected and these figures are overly accumulative and therefore makes it seems statistically that all of the the 29,580 are currently sexual active in the gay and bi populations while in fact they (i.e., some to many) may not have been for years or decades. Another main problem is that it assumes that even if all this 58,000 are still sexually active (and there are no unknown cases) that only those unware that they are infected would continue to have sex (and those who would know either wouldn't have sex or would have sex with those that are also already infected).
Using the figure of 2,300 new cases per year (to attemp to reduce the accumulative affect):
2,300 x .51 = 1173
1173/331,958.8986
0.003533569 x 100 = 0.3533569%
The problem with using the number of new cases is it it presumes that these individuals will still continue to be sexually active (something hopefully doubtful) and it assumes time has remained constant (not going forward and the numbers of infected persons do not accumulated or infected persons do not die: needless to say, both assumptions being wrong). And, in reality if they stop being sexually active there would still be those that are unaware that they are infected and who are sexually active. It also presumes that all past infected people are known and 100% have stopped being sexually active with non-infected people (common sense would say this is, sadly, doubtful). What needs to be asked is 'on any random snapshot day how many infected gay or bi-sexual men are sexually active with non-infected men?' (what is meant by this is who are or will be sexually active for the present and statistically presumably the future).
It would seem that given the two data above would give a range of potentially still sexually active AIDS/HIV gay or bi-sexual males (who will have sex with non-infected males) maybe between 0.3533569% (this would be 1 out of approx. 284 partners) and 2.4059002% (approx. 1 out of 42 partners).
Interesting Reading:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/11/24/f-aids-hiv-global-epidemic.html
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/diseases-maladies/hiv-vih-eng.php#hivc
Yearly increases by cases and rates by Specific Geographical Areas and other demographics:
http://www.bccdc.ca/util/about/annreport/default.htm
*1 in 40 gay men in Vancouver study unaware of HIV status:CBC News
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/1-40-gay-men-vancouver-study-unaware-hiv.html