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| Info About HIV Seroprevalence in Canadian Prisons Released |
| By Canadian HIV Legal Network |
| Published: 12/17/2001 |
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In Canada's federal prison system (where offenders sentenced to prison terms of two years or more serve their terms), the number of reported cases of HIV/AIDS rose from 14 in January 1989 to 159 in March 1996 and 217 in December 2000. This means that 1.66 percent of all federal prison inmates are known to be HIV-positive. The actual numbers may be even higher: the reported cases, provided by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), include only cases of HIV infection and AIDS known to CSC, but many inmates may not have disclosed their HIV status to CSC, or may not know themselves that they are HIV-positive. In provincial prisons (where offenders sentenced to prison terms of less than two years serve their terms), rates of HIV infection are also high. Studies undertaken in prisons in British Columbia, Ontario, and Québec have all shown that HIV sero-prevalence rates in prisons are over 10 times higher than in the general population, ranging from 1.0 to 7.7 percent. As in Canada, rates of HIV-infection in inmate populations worldwide are much higher than in the general population. They are, in general, closely related to two factors: the proportion of prisoners who injected drugs prior to imprisonment, and the rate of HIV infection among injection drug users in the community. Hepatitis C (HCV) prevalence rates in Canadian prisons are even higher than HIV prevalence rates: studies undertaken in the early and mid 1990s in Canadian prisons revealed rates of between 28 and 40 percent. Rates continue to rise. In one federal prison, 33 percent of study participants tested positive in 1998, compared with 27.9 percent in 1995; and at the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women in British Columbia, over 78 percent of 69 inmates tested for HCV between 1 January 1996 and 8 August 1996 were seropositive. Similar figures are reported from other countries: 39 percent in prisons in Victoria, Australia, and 50 percent in New South Wales, Australia; 30 to 41 percent among US prisoners in California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and Washington; and 74.8 percent among injection drug users in a prison for women in Vechta, Lower Saxony, Germany. Most HCV-positive inmates come to prison already infected, but the potential for further spread is high: HCV is much more easily transmitted than HIV, and transmission has been documented in prisons in several countries, including Canada. (8/20) |
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