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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Effort to fight Ukraine's HIV/AIDS delayed
WINNIPEG-based efforts to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in eastern Ukraine have been delayed for another year.
Wendy Schettler, director of public health programs for Winnipeg's International Centre for Infectious Diseases (ICID), said the centre is still waiting for UNICEF to approve the project, which would send local experts to the eastern city of Zaporizhzhya.
The spread of HIV in Ukraine is considered one of the world's most problematic epidemics, since both intravenous drug use and the sex trade are fuelling new infections. A recent UNICEF report said Ukraine is the worst-affected European country, with an estimated 440,000 people living with HIV, and the infection continues to spread rapidly among people ages 15 to 49.
Ukrainian officials met in Winnipeg in 2008 to discuss the scope of the problem, and ICID officials and University of Manitoba HIV experts visited Ukraine last year to develop a plan on how and where to target interventions.
Schettler expects the bureaucratic delay will be resolved shortly, and that the ICID will begin fundraising for half of the $1-million project within the next six months.
Dr. James Blanchard, director of the U of M's Centre for Global Public Health, said the approach will be modelled after similar prevention programs U of M has launched in India, Pakistan and sub-Saharan Africa.
He said Ukraine is struggling with a "volatile" combination of intravenous drug use and high-risk sex, which makes an epidemic difficult to control.
jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 7, 2010 A5
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