News

This year’s theme for World AIDS Day is encouraging people to know their HIV status. HIV testing is very much needed for expanding treatment. Treatment is so important as that makes that no HIV is detected in blood and therefore not transmissible to other people. In the region where AFEW International works – Eastern Europe and Central Asia – barriers to HIV testing still remain. Last year, among the 1.4 million people living with HIV in the region 73% were aware of their HIV status.

The issues of stigma, discrimination and human rights violations were broadly discussed during the AIDS 2018 conference which

Svetlana Izambaeva was one of the first women living with HIV in Russia who was brave enough to open her face. Now Svetlana supports other people living with HIV. In summer 2018, Svetlana Izambaeva’s Non-Profit Charitable Foundation held a gathering of adolescents living with HIV with financial support of AFEW International and other donors. We talked with Svetlana to ask her what was interesting about this gathering in Georgia and why, when we talk about HIV, we also “uncover” other topics. 

AFEW International and AFEW Network have organised and supported numerous activities within 22nd International AIDS Conference AIDS 2018. AFEW joined many initiatives by other organisations and networks and presented successful cases of work in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA). Together with EECA regional networks and committed advocates, AFEW has put great effort into making sure that the AIDS crisis and related public health concerns in EECA were featured in the conference program.