Marking World AIDS Day

United Nations agencies marked World AIDS Day on Wednesday by recognising the work of HIV/AIDS organisations in Kyrgyzstan through special awards. On the same day, the US Embassy in Bishkek donated medical equipment to the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health to help its work with people living with HIV/AIDS. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the official number of HIV cases has risen in the last four years 12 times faster than in the period 1987 to 2000. At the ceremony, Jerzy Skuratowicz, UN Coordinator in the Kyrgyz Republic, said: “I have found that in Kyrgyzstan as of November 1, 2004 – 630 people are living with HIV and 11 percent of them are women. The number is still increasing. We should make efforts to stop this tendency”. Richard Young, chairman of the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS awarded the Jonathan Mann award for media and NGO work in the field of HIV/AIDS jointly to the Sotcium NGO and Kifayat Askerova, a journalist of Slovo Kyrgyzstana newspaper. Sotcium is well known for its work in the field of HIV/AIDS since 1997. It has been active in trying to stop the spread of the disease among intravenous drug users – the most common method of transmission in the republic and wider region. “We work with people living with chemical dependence helping them to remain free of HIV infection. I am proud to receive this award. It increases our commitment to this work,” Batma Estebesova, chair of Sotcium NGO, told IRIN. The US Embassy donated seven sets of serological laboratory equipment - it increases the accuracy of HIV and other test results, which could improve the country’s response to HIV/AIDS and other infections. “I believe this donation will contribute to the struggle against AIDS in Kyrgyzstan,” US Ambassador Stephen Young said. Five sets of the equipment will be distributed to provincial AIDS Centres, with one set each going to the Bishkek-based Republican AIDS Centre and Republican Blood Centre. Director of the Republican AIDS Center Boris Shapiro said: “Today AIDS is not a problem of medicine, but that of society, cultural and moral norms”. “I am confident I shall live to see the day when we will reduce our services [AIDS centre] because there will be no need. My wish is that a medicine will be found that cures HIV/AIDS,” Shapiro told IRIN.