There have been many individuals who have played a critical role in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but one person who stands out is Dr. Julio Montaner.
Dr. Montaner is a Canadian physician and researcher who is widely credited with developing the concept of treatment as prevention (TasP) for HIV. This approach involves aggressively diagnosing and treating people with HIV, which reduces the amount of virus in their blood and makes them less infectious. By treating people with HIV, Dr. Montaner believed that it would be possible to dramatically reduce the number of new infections.
Dr. Montaner’s work on TasP began in the early 2000s, when he was the director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. He led a successful campaign to implement TasP in British Columbia, which resulted in a 60% reduction in new HIV diagnoses in the province between 1996 and 2012. His work has since been adopted as a model for HIV treatment and prevention worldwide.
Dr. Montaner has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and being awarded the Order of Canada. He continues to be an advocate for TasP and for the development of new HIV prevention strategies.
