Canada: Striking Posters Aimed at Youth Carry Pointed Hep C Messages

Dianne Birt, education coordinator for AIDS Prince Edward Island, searched a long time to find the right look for posters to warn Island youth of the dangers of hepatitis C, educate them on prevention, and encourage testing. She finally chose images of a rugged young man with tattoos and a lip piercing, and a young woman with a tongue stud and a tattoo. The posters warn youth not to share the needles used during tattooing, body piercing, or injecting steroids or other drugs.

Dr. Lamont Sweet, the province's chief health officer, said body piercing and tattooing, popular among Island youth, are risky if people do it on their own without clean equipment. He said all tattoo parlors on the Island are inspected to ensure safe practices.

Sweet said the poster campaign, launched Monday by AIDS PEI and the Department of Health and Social Services, is a good way to help protect Islanders from contracting hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus that attacks the liver.

The poster campaign is not just for youth, Birt said. Another poster, "Big Problems in Small Places," targets the general public. Unlike the youth posters, this one notes that AIDS PEI provides free needles and condoms.

The posters will hang in Island junior and senior high schools, other youth venues, doctors' offices and correctional facilities. Sweet said there are 351 diagnosed cases of hepatitis C on Prince Edward Island, many of those intravenous drug users who shared needles. He estimates 700 more have the virus but do not know it.

"It's important that people engaging in high risk behaviors learn more about the danger they are placing themselves, and their friends, in," Birt said.

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