Late initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy in Canada: a call for a national public health strategy to improve engagement in HIV care

INTRODUCTION: Combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) significantly decreases morbidity, mortality and HIV transmission. We aimed to characterize the timing of ART initiation based on CD4 cell count from 2000 to 2012 and identify factors associated with late initiation of treatment. METHODS: Participants from the Canadian Observational Cohort (CANOC), a multi-site cohort of HIV-positive adults initiating ART naively after 1 January 2000, in …