Leading HIV experts, First Nations healers, and people living with HIV are taking part in a two day conference in Regina beginning tomorrow morning.

Saskatchewan has the highest infection rate in Canada and most of those cases are in the aboriginal community.

Conference organizer, Margaret Poitras, is the CEO of the All Nations Hope Aids Network. She says the solution is combining traditional healing with modern medicine.

“I’m talking about more than just giving them treatment — a pill for HIV.  I’m talking about so much more than that, and that’s what needs to be incorporated into the work that everybody’s doing with people who come through their doors and are HIV positive,

There are about 200 new cases of HIV infection in Saskatchewan every year.

On a per-capita basis that is three times higher than Ontario and more than twice the national average.

Most of the new cases are a result of sharing dirty needles.