Broadening access to treatment in Ukraine
28 April 2005
Nine further regions in Ukraine will now have access to anti-retroviral treatment as part of the Global Fund-supported programme being implemented by Alliance Ukraine. The plan is to provide 2,355 adults and 245 children in Ukraine with anti-retroviral treatment by September 2005.
At the start of March 2005, the Alliance along with experts from the Ukrainian AIDS Centre, Ministry of Health and People Living with HIV/AIDS Network, evaluated nine regions to assess their readiness to implement treatment programmes. The evaluation team checked the capacity of institutions and identified their training and technical assistance needs.
As a result of the assessments, anti-retroviral treatment will be started in Zaporizhya, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, (Kyiv and the city of Bila Tserkva) Luhansk, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson and Vinnytsia regions and the city of Sevastopol. In addition, from 1 April 2005, technical assistance will be provided to AIDS Centres in Sevastopol, Bila Tserkva and Kyiv .
As of 1 February 2005, 1,166 adults and 126 children were receiving treatment. The programme is currently reaching eight regions with the highest prevalence rates: Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Crimea, Cherkassy and Kherson.
