News

People in prison have higher rates of drug use and injecting than the general population, and people with drug-related problems make up a significant proportion of people in prison. Among high-risk drug users in the community, many will have repeat experience of prison. The likelihood of having contracted an infectious disease is higher among high-risk drug users with a prison history than among those who have never been incarcerated, and the risk of overdose death in the immediate period after release from prison is high. Such were the talks during the World Health Organization (WHO) international meeting on prisons and health, held in Lisbon, Portugal, on 11–12 December 2017.

Our meeting with David Ananiashvili was appointed in a green courtyard of the Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Research Centre. The Centre is located in an old building in one of the central districts of Tbilisi, Georgia. The authorities have been promising a new working space for the centre since long ago, but so far there has been no progress in this process. However, David feels at home – he knows every corner here. He was one of the first people in Georgia who publicly spoke about their HIV status. David is the head of the Georgian Plus Group NGO. Since 2000, the NGO has been implementing various projects to protect the rights of people living with HIV and standing up to stigma and discrimination.

For almost a year and a half, law enforcement agencies have been persecuting sex workers in Kyrgyzstan. During this period, the number of sex workers receiving HIV prevention services in some regions of the country reduced twice. Civil society organisations registered up to 475 cases of sex workers’ rights violations by the police every year.

As you might know from previous conferences, traditionally there will be a march or demonstration of HIV and AIDS activists. This year the march will take place just before the official opening of the conference at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre in the afternoon of Monday, 23rd of July 2018. With this email we would like to introduce us to you and ask you to join us in the march/demonstration to raise our voices for and with people living with HIV. We are aware that we might be a little ahead of time. But it gives us together with you more time to activate more people and to organise a good march in cooperation with the local authorities. Please forward this email to more organisations, people, living with HIV or relatives and friends you know and who might like to become part or support the march. 

According to the Republican AIDS Center, the total number of HIV positive citizens in Tajikistan has reached 10 thousand people, one third of them are women. Since 2004, women with HIV have given birth to 1,000 children, 600 of these children have no HIV. Each year the Republican Network of Women Living with HIV helps at least 5-6 young HIV positive people to find their spouses.

NGOs play a crucial role in the development of effective HIV/AIDS responses. Non-governmental organisations meaningfully involve community key population groups for a better understanding of their needs. The experts are saying that the limited space that NGOs are allowed to maneuver in, is threatening the effectiveness of national and regional policies to contain and stop the growth of the HIV epidemic in the region. AFEW International’s experts Janine Wildschut and Magdalena Dabkowska conducted a mixed-methods research to explore the process of shrinking civil society space in the EECA countries, how this affects NGOs and how they are coping with it. With this research, AFEW has gained more insights and learned how NGOs are currently dealing with those challenges. The research is part of AFEW’s regional approach within Bridging the Gaps: health and rights of key populations project. 

The estimate number of people who use injected drugs (PWID) in Kyrgyzstan is about 25,000 people. Many of these people are women. Such is the data from the research that was conducted within the framework of the Global Fund’s grant in 2013. Within the framework of the project Bridging the Gaps: health and rights for key populations, AFEW-Kyrgyzstan decided to develop a clinical guideline to care in pregnancy for women who use drugs as there were no modern standards for working with women who use drugs in the country before.