We, at AFEW network, are shocked by the sad news that our colleague Yury Sarankov passed away.
Yury worked in AFEW from the very beginning. Starting in Russia, when AFEW was not yet founded and activities were implemented under the flag of Medecins sans Frontiers (MSF), he specialized in developing and implementing harm reduction activities. Later, he moved to Kyiv to give harm reduction a boost in Ukraine. He was there when AFEW was established in 2000 and continued working on harm reduction. Yury was a rather introvert person and you would not always notice him, but when the subject of injecting drug use and especially harm reduction was discussed, and how, in the early days, the establishment of harm reduction was often blocked, he raised his voice. Yury became well-known as a harm reduction expert and as the editor of a harm reduction digest that he was spreading by the e-mail through the AFEW network.
In the last couple of years, Yury decided to stop his work with AFEW. However, he continued to work as a consultant on men who have sex with men (MSM) and LGBT issues. He kept the link with AFEW, and until his last days, he remained the member of AFEW-Ukraine fund. We have lost a strong advocate for HIV prevention, the rights of key populations affected by HIV, and also a very nice man and a very dear colleague. Our condolences go to his family, friends, and colleagues.
