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On the photos, there are 15 Kazakhstani people who live with HIV, or who were cured of tuberculosis. The name of the exhibition Life in the Shadow speaks for itself, because due to the human ignorance, the heroes of our photos should hide their diagnosis from others and live with their problem alone in fear. Now they have opened their faces for the exhibition and they are not afraid to share their experiences.

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.