News

Hepatitis Prevention Month to commemorate the World Hepatitis Day was organised for the first time in the history of Kyrgyzstan by the Ministry of Health in July this year. Over the recent years, the list of registered and allowed for import medications to treat hepatitis C has been expanded, the new clinical treatment protocol has been approved and a six-year target program to counteract viral hepatitis was adopted. In our interview with Nurgul Ibraeva, Chief Officer of the Department of Health Services and Medications Policy of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health, we discussed the reasons for the increased attention to the problem of hepatitis in Kyrgyzstan.

Success with harm reduction has recently been achieved in Tajikistan. HIV epidemic amongst injecting drug users also seems to stabilize and even decline. Unfortunately, HIV is still increasing as now it also enters wider community around people who use drugs (PUD) and other key populations. Sexual transmission of HIV is rising, and women is the most vulnerable group in this new wave of HIV infections. Besides, in Tajikistan there are other health related issues with tuberculosis, hepatitis and sexual and reproductive health. These are the observations of AFEW International’s director of the programs Janine Wildschut who visited Tajikistan last week to monitor the work of ‘Bridging the Gaps: health and rights for key popualtions’ programme.

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.

The community dialogue platform gathered for the summer school last week in Kyrgyzstan. This summer school was organised within ‘Bridging the Gaps’ programme. The director of programs of AFEW International Janine Wildschut attended the school. After some days of serious work in which the community discussed struggles they face in Kyrgyzstan and how they can come up with a united voice, a training on burnout syndrome and how to prevent it was arranged.