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Mass Media Campaign on Safer Sex (Russian Federation)
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Press-Release
Press-Release
Launch of the HIV/AIDS prevention campaign among young people "It is
important to be protected!"
Moscow, June 15, 2001. On Saturday, June 16, information HIV/AIDS prevention
campaign among young people "How important it is to be protected!"
will be launched in central Gorky park. It will be significantly different from
the three previous campaigns: "Safe sex - my choice" (1997), "Reasonable
person - reasonable choice" (1999) and "This small thing will protect
both of us" (2000).
This new campaign is focused on young people between the ages of twenty and
twenty-nine and is related to the need to change behavioral stereotypes. The
method of provision of information and the concept of the informational commercials
have been seriously changed. Society has become more tolerant towards sex issues,
as a result the clips and posters used for this campaign will deal more openly
with this topic.
This is already the third campaign conducted by the Foundation for Civic Initiatives
Support (FOCUS) in cooperation with international medical humanitarian organization
Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF-Holland) with the support of the Ministry of Health
of the Russian Federation.
In this campaign four video clips of 20-30 seconds will be broadcast on TV.
Outdoor advertisements will be placed in the metro and on the streets of Moscow.
We will also distribute information leaflets, posters and postcards.
Safe sex and HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns have been conducted in Russia since
1997. The results of researches to evaluate the impact of each campaign indicate
that all of them were successful and had significant influence on the knowledge,
attitude and behavior of young Muscovites. Our latest survey shows that of the
sexually active respondents 68% have ever used a condom. Over the last two years
the number of respondents practicing safe sex on a regular basis has doubled
from 25% to 43%. The knowledge level about ways of HIV transmission has also
increased .
In the past HIV has been spreading quickly among injecting drug users. However,
during the last two years it has started to spread through sexual transmission
among the general population. In the year 2000 six percent of HIV-infected people
were infected this way. But in the first three months of 2001 this figure have
grown from 6% to 10.3% .
In comparison with 1987, the syphilis infection rate today has increased more
than 60 times. This indicates how wide spread the practice of unsafe sexual
behavior and ignorance towards sexual health matters is.
Russian youth today is especially vulnerable to HIV infection and other sexually
transmitted diseases. 90% of HIV-infected Russians are young people between
the ages of fifteen and twenty-five . At the same time there is no sex education
in Russian schools and no access to sexual health information. For this reason,
the general level of knowledge about STIs and HIV amongst this age group is
low.
At the present time, one of the major ways to reduce the growth of the HIV
epidemic among Russian youth, is by informational and educational campaigns
which distribute information about safer sexual behavior.
The Foundation for Civic Initiatives Support (Focus) and the international
humanitarian medical organization Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF-Holland) in
cooperation with the Russian Ministry of Health and other governmental and non-governmental
organizations consider it very important to continue the promotion of safer
sexual behavior.
The "How important it is to be protected" campaign will be launched
in Moscow. Throughout 2001 it will be implemented in other Russian cities.
On all inquiries related to the campaign, please contact "Focus"
Foundation
telephone: (095) 250-6176, 250-6177
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