News

Public Foundation “AIDS Foundation East-West in the Kyrgyz Republic” makes a significant contribution to public health of the country in reducing the growth rate of socially significant infections in Kyrgyzstan. The head of AFEW-Kyrgyzstan Natalya Shumskaya is telling what we should expect from the organisation in 2017, and outlines the achievements of the previous year.

HIV remains a significant public health problem in the 31 countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), with around 30 000 newly diagnosed HIV infections reported each year over the last decade. In a two-day conference organised in collaboration between the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union and ECDC, HIV experts from across the European Union discussed how to reverse this trend and how to prepare Europe to achieve the set target of ending AIDS by 2030.

Why is eastern Europe the only region in the world that still has a growing HIV epidemic? In one of the region’s countries, Russia, more than two thirds of all HIV infections, and 55% of the near 100 000 new infections reported last year, resulted from drug injection.

Last December HIV voluntary counselling and rapid testing point was opened in in the representative office of RPO AFEW-Tajikistan in the city of Qurghonteppa. Director of AFEW-Tajikistan Ikrom Ibragimov tells about the achievements of the testing point and the organisation in general.

AFEW International executive director Anke van Dam sums up the results of 2016 and gives introduction of AFEW activities for the upcoming year of 2017.

Sofia and her forty-year-old mother Leila live in the hostel that operates in the centre of adaptation and socialization of women – injecting drug users in the public fund Asteria in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Leila was recently released from prison.

Kharkiv City Charitable Foundation Blago has a long history of working with key populations, including people who use drugs, sex workers, men having sex with men and street children. The organisation started to work with adolescents using drugs since 2012 within the framework of “Bridging the Gaps: Health and Rights of Key Populations” project, through AFEW-Ukraine.

This is a call to action for European governments, international organisations, patient organisations, and the wider health community to align on a new HIV policy agenda that addresses the crucial unmet needs of people living with HIV (PLHIV) – to ensure they can live longer in good health, and participate fully in society and the economy.