Rapid scale-up of focused prevention needed in Ukraine
27 July 2006
If Ukraine’s AIDS epidemic is not curtailed quickly, by 2014 the country’s economic growth could decline by at least 6%, warns a new study, Socioeconomic impact of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine, from the World Bank and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine.
“If we miss the chance to reverse the flow of the epidemic today through preventing new HIV cases, tomorrow we will be needing to provide the growing number of positive people with treatment and care”, says Andriy Klepikov, Executive Director of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine.
According to the report, the five-year period from 2006 to 2010 will be decisive for addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine. Success can only come from sustained national commitment, including allocation of appropriate funding from the domestic budget for key prevention, care and treatment activities.
“Without rapid scale-up of focused prevention efforts, particularly among injecting drug users, HIV treatment will never become socially and economically sustainable,” Andriy confirmed.
The study assessed the medium- to long-term impacts of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine and evaluated the effects of prevention and treatment. It found that HIV/AIDS is a major obstacle to economic growth in Ukraine, affecting households, businesses, and the government.
Ukraine’s already declining population would shrink even faster in a generalized epidemic. While injecting drug use remains the primary source of HIV transmission in Ukraine, an increasing number of cases are emerging among the partners of injecting drug users and among children. By 2014, the total number of HIV-positive people could range from 478,500 under optimistic scenarios to 820,400 under a pessimistic one.
A worsening epidemic could also lead to reduced labour supply and worker productivity, ballooning health care costs, and decreased public and private savings and investment. Labour-intensive sectors such as agriculture and mining could be hit particularly hard, in part because such activities are concentrated in the higher-prevalence southern and eastern regions. A worst-case scenario anticipates a fall of 40% in such sectors, which translates into 5.5% fall in GDP, an 8% fall in total welfare, and a 9% fall in investment.
