World AIDS Day marked with concert

There was tumultuous applause from the audience of more than a thousand following the appearance of popular singers during a charity concert devoted to World AIDS Day on Thursday, in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The concert was a platform for pop stars to inform and mobilise people, especially the young, in the fight against AIDS. “The importance of such event is that it informs people, and especially youth, about the HIV/AIDS problem and of course the participation of music stars leads to an increase in people’s interest in this issue,” Nail Sufiyanov, from the Kyrgyz Alliance of Family Planning, a local NGO, said. The event was organised by: the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria; the United Nations Office for Drug and Crime prevention (UNODC); the United Nations Join programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); the Kyrgyz Red Crescent Society; and the Kyrgyz government. Despite that fact that Kyrgyzstan has a low prevalence of HIV infection, a steady rise in intravenous drug users and sex workers means infection rates are increasing. According to the Republican AIDS Centre, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in this former Soviet republic of 5.3 million is 807, while unofficial estimates put the figure at ten times that number. Though the highest-risk group for HIV/AIDS is still injecting drug users, the number of people infected through sex has increased markedly. Today, an estimated 67 percent of newly- registered cases were infected through sexual intercourse. About 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Some three million of them are expected to die of AIDS this year. Africa, with only 10 percent of the world's population, suffers over half of its HIV infections. Maksat Begaliev, a well-known Kyrgyz pop star, said after his appearance at the concert: “We have to live, it is our city, it is our country and it is our world, we have to stop AIDS.”