Donors call on country to strengthen battle again HIV/AIDS

The number of HIV-infected people in Tajikistan could reach 10,000 by the end of this year unless preventive measures were taken immediately, members of the donor community warned on Wednesday. "Taking into account the factors conducive to the spread of HIV infection, experts have estimated that the number of HIV-infected people in the country may rise from an estimated 4,000 cases in 2004 to 10,000 by the end of 2006. At this rate the number of HIV-infected cases may double every 13 months,” the statement said. While the number of officially registered cases in Central Asia's most impoverished nation was just over 500 persons at the end of 2005, experts believe the real figure to be 10 times that amount. "One of the limiting factors for the rapid expansion of [HIV]activities is the inadequate capacity at national and sub-national levels to implement the many programmes," the statement noted one day after a donor coordination meeting in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. "HIV/AIDS in Tajikistan is driven largely by the strong increase of intravenous drug users, but returning migrant workers, as well as prostitution, are also spreading the infection into the population at large," it said. According to experts, up to 900,000 people annually leave the former Soviet republic for seasonal work, mainly to Russia. In Tajikistan, which remains a primary transit point of opiates from Afghanistan, the number of drug users was not less than 55,000, increasing annually by 15 percent. The donors and ambassadors at Tuesday's meeting called on Dushanbe to scale up the national HIV/AIDS response, particularly to rural communities. They also called for the development of sector strategies that would facilitate the implementation of a national strategic plan in rural areas, strengthening national coordination and harmonising existing systems among the various partners, as well as accelerating the introduction of a school HIV/AIDS education programme. "With one percent of the population infected by 2008, Tajikistan would be at the earliest stages of an HIV/AIDS epidemic,” the donors and ambassadors warned.