AFEW: For journalists >> ART Photo Exhibition in Center of Contemporary Art in Kyiv "Positive Lives"

ART Photo Exhibition in Center of Contemporary Art in Kyiv "Positive Lives"

On 14 November 2001, the international organizations Médecins Sans Frontières and AIDS Foundation East-West and the Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv, open the ART Photo Exhibition "Positive Lives" in Kyiv. The ambassador of the Netherlands, together with a high representative from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, will officially open the exhibition in the Center for Contemporary Art. The exhibition, which features photographers Aleksandr Glyadyelov, Anne-Lore Kuryszczuk and John Ranard, is designed to draw attention to HIV and AIDS in Ukraine, showing hope amidst difficulty. The event also marks the hand over of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Ukraine to the new international non-governmental organization - AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW).

MSF has partnered with the Soros/Open Society Institute and the Dutch government to create AFEW, which will focus on the HIV/AIDS-related health challenges facing Ukraine and other Newly Independent States (NIS). AFEW works to strengthen East-West engagement via the exchange of knowledge and people through program activities and strives to promote better understanding among Western countries of the complex social and health problems in the region. The current Ukrainian mass media solidarity campaign, "You Should Know More About HIV and AIDS", and training of non-governmental organizations in prevention activities will shift to AFEW, while MSF continues its existing care and treatment program that focus on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and care and treatment of AIDS patients. MSF gives special support to HIV-positive mothers and their children. Peer counsellors help these women with their psychosocial and medical problems in daily life.

MSF works closely with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, as well as with local NGOs like the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS. Ukraine has the highest HIV infection rates of the former Soviet Union. At the moment about 40.000 people are officially registered as HIV-positive. Real figures are believed to be five to ten times higher. MSF will start to treat babies with AIDS with triple therapy, a combination of three medicines designed to fight the AIDS virus. These medicines are very expensive at the moment in Ukraine. MSF advocates towards the Ukrainian government to improve access to affordable AIDS medicines by allowing cheaper versions of these drugs on the market. MSF works in the south of Ukraine in Odesa, Mykolayiv and Simferopol, and has a coordinating office in Kyiv.

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