The world movement, which already includes more than 70 major cities around the world, has reached Central Asia. The first city, whose authorities signed Paris Declaration with an appeal to stop AIDS epidemic on July 20, 2017, was Almaty.
For a couple of years, European civil society organisations advocate for a new European Communication and Action Plan for HIV. In the World Health Organisation, new HIV diagnosed infections in European region increased by 76%. These infections more than doubled in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) from 2005 to 2014.
Georgia has inadequate policies in the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights. There are strong religious and conservative powers and gender inequality in addition to a fragile civil society that especially influences the lives of adolescents and young people. Much progress has been made in recent years in advocacy to advance youth sexual and reproductive health and rights, for example.
Starting from 2006, non-commercial organizations in Russia are supported by the president. This was the first year of the presidential grant competition. For 10-year existence, the system of finance distribution was quite complicated: at first the head of the state approved the list of non-commercial organizations (NCO) – the receivers of grants with his decree, and then the NCOs were included into the finance distribution system. In 2017, the procedure was simplified: grant participants may apply online. There has appeared the unified operator – presidential grant foundation.
A big amount of working age population in Tajikistan (where the entire population is eight million people) take part in labour migration to Russia. After their return to homeland, migrants get diagnosed with tuberculosis and HIV. Experts believe that there should be a complex of prevention activities for HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis among such vulnerable groups as migrants and their sexual partners.
The general global trend of reducing grant support and the rise of Kyrgyzstan in the qualification of the World Bank from the level of countries with low income to the level of countries with lower middle income encourages the transition of the country to national funding. It is a difficult process for the state, because from the very beginning the prevention programmes in the country (about 15 years) were funded by international donors.
The struggle against HIV/AIDS epidemic in Kyiv strengthened since the mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, signed the declaration in Paris. Apart from that, Kyiv was included into the Fast-Track Cities programme in April 2016 as a measure to fight AIDS. According to this programme, 90% of the citizens in 2020 should know about the disease, 90% of the infected ones should be getting treatment, and the treatment should be effective for 90% of the patients.
Approximately five thousand citizens of Tajikistan, which were found to be infected with HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis during their stay in the territory of the Russian Federation, were declared personae non gratae for lifetime by the government of Russia in June this year. How could this expulsion of infected fellow citizens affect the Republic of Tajikistan?
During the regional seminar-meeting held on 6-7 June in Almaty, Central Asian nongovernmental organizations established a network of partner organizations to address issues of labour migration and tuberculosis. The participants accepted draft Memorandum of cooperation between non-profit organizations to reduce the prevalence and incidence of tuberculosis among migrant workers in the countries of the region.
Last year a major event in the field of HIV in Russia became the adoption of the National strategies of counteraction with the spread of HIV-infection in the Russian Federation until 2020. One of the key objectives of the Strategy was the consolidation of efforts of governmental and nonprofit organizations in their fight against the epidemic. Today we discuss the implementation of this interaction in the most progressive city of Russia with the Deputy chief physician of St. Petersburg Center for prevention and control of AIDS and infectious diseases, holder of Doctoral degree in Medicine, third-generation doctor Tatiana Vinogradova.
