Ukraine reverses HIV/AIDS mortality trend
16 January 2006
Ministry of Health figures have confirmed that the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS in Ukraine has begun to decline, thanks in part to the roll out of an Alliance treatment programme. In the first 18 months of Alliance HIV/AIDS initiatives in Ukraine, more than 3,000 people began anti-retroviral treatment. In addition, financial and technical support given to more than 150 non-governmental organisations has helped establish a new public drive to fight the epidemic.
Andriy Klepikov, executive director of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine, is proud of this achievement. “We have completed the first phase of the programme supported by the Global Fund with maximum results,” he confirmed.
Ukraine has one of the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in the world, and the highest prevalence rate in Europe and Central Asia. Two of the country’s largest HIV/AIDS initiatives are now being implemented by the Alliance.
The Alliance, which has signed an agreement with the Global Fund worth more than $67 million over the next three years, has pledged to double the number of people living with HIV/AIDS set to receive anti-retroviral treatment by October 2008.
In addition to the life-saving treatment programme, Alliance priorities are substitution therapy and prevention work among injecting drug users, who remain the group most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in Ukraine. A massive scale up of work in these areas is planned with Ukraine’s AIDS service organisations.
