Archive for the ‘HIV’ Category

HIV in Uzbekistan – Prevention and care

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Kamola Rasulova, UNDP in Uzbekistan

I was recently sifting through last year’s pictures and reports of our UNDP-Global Fund HIV project and I was amazed to see the progress we made and the people we were able to help in a short period of time.

And the numbers tell the same story:

  • Over 24,000 people of the most-at-risk populations from all regions benefited from HIV care, prevention, and support services and advocacy aimed at  reducing  high risk behaviour.
  • Over 31,000 young people received HIV prevention services provided by peer educators.
  • More than 3,800 people living with HIV received antiretroviral therapy and 210 specialists received basic and advanced training in antiretroviral therapy
  • 365 health care practitioners received training for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
And this is just part of what we achieved in 2011.

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Posted in Health, HIV, Social inclusion | No Comments »

Violence and the risk of HIV

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

John Macauley 

There is increasing evidence that there is a link between gender-based violence and HIV transmission.

Women who have experienced intimate partner violence have double the risk of contracting HIV and sexually transmitted infections. (World Health Organization, 2011 Why address gender-based violence in HIV response & what are effective strategies?)

This finding is relevant for sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender populations and injecting drug users since they often experience violence. For example based on two studies conducted in the USA, 68 percent of young men who have sex with men experience threats or violence from either family or partners and 25 percent of men who have sex with men experience threats or violence from both family and partners. Prevalence of rape among female sex workers is also very common with surveys showing 32 percent in Mombasa, Kenya and 31 percent in Karnataka, India (WHO, 2011).

Most governments, including those in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, don’t always take into account the link between violence and the risk of HIV when developing their national strategies plans on HIV and AIDS.

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Posted in Gender equality, Governance, HIV | 2 Comments »

TODAY! World AIDS Day: John and Dudley are taking over our Twitter account!

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

These amazing lads will be with you for all of tomorrow (December 1st) - World Aids Day – tweeting and replying to your tweets on issues related to HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe, Caucasus andCentral Asia (follow them at @UNDP_Europe_CIS)

They both work for our HIV, health and development team that seeks to promote and protect the rights of key populations such as injecting drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men. The team also works to help national health systems mitigate the effects of HIV, tuberculosis and other health challenges.

 

Dudley Tarlton

Dudley works with countries in Europe andCentral Asia to promote sustainable financing for HIV treatment and the enforcement of laws that protect people living with HIV.

 

 

 

 

 

John Macauley

John has been working on HIV, health and development issues in Eastern Europe andCentral Asia since 2004. He currently focuses on the identification and dissemination of good practices.

Posted in Development, Health, HIV | No Comments »

Exploring the link between migration and tuberculosis in Central Asia

Friday, November 25th, 2011

By Christoph Hamelmann

The European/Central Asian region has the highest rate of multi-drug- and extensively-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR and XDR TB respectively, in practitioner’s jargon) in the world. According to WHO, there are currently an estimated  81,000 people with MDR or XDR TB in the region. Most of them do not receive a proper diagnosis and treatment.

At the national level, health systems often do not have enough capacity to identify and treat cases. The situation is further worsened by the substantial amount of (partially illegal) labor migration in the region.  Moving to another country means that diagnoses get hidden or delayed and treatment interrupted.

Drug resistant TB is not purely a health issue. It has economic repercussions as well.  Compare the costs of just a few Euro for a normal TB treatment course with thousands of Euro per person for all costs related to dealing with drug-resistant TB. WHO is estimating that we need to invest US $ 5.2 billion over the next 5 years for a reasonable action plan; without it, the final bill will be definitely larger.

Ultimately however at the core of this problem are social determinants of health and inequitable access to health services.

For the above reasons, I welcome next week’s high-level meeting on “Migration and tuberculosis: cross border care and control in Central Asia” in Almaty. I am looking forward to reviewing the outcomes of the meeting and, perhaps most importantly, to helping with the implementation plan coming out of the event. Watch this space for updates.

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Posted in Development, Health, HIV | 3 Comments »

Laws should help people with HIV, not punish them

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

John Macauley

graphic for Commission on HIV and the Law

 

I was recently in Chisinau, Moldova, where the Global Commission on HIV and the Law met with more than 100 people from 24 countries – individuals, communities, policy and law makers from countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia – as part of a region wide effort to improve HIV responses.

In this region, where HIV is growing faster than any other region in the world, more than 100 people and groups shared their stories and experiences with HIV and the law. Sadly, most were negative.

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Posted in HIV | 2 Comments »

Intellectual property and HIV treatment: balancing profit and the right to human health

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

John Macauley


HIV medication and treatment

Intellectual property rights and access to essential medicines were the topics of discussions jointly organized with the Ministry of Trade in Almaty, Kazakhstan this month.

Representatives from trade, health and intellectual property sectors in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia explored the need to use the flexibilities inherent in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) to improve access to HIV treatment. This includes the potential impact of current commitments to protecting intellectual property that exceed the requirements of the TRIPS Agreement on access to medicines, technology transfer and the opportunities to foster local pharmaceutical production.

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Posted in HIV | No Comments »