On August 30 during the national event “Help To Survive!” the activists of the Ukrainian Charitable Organization “The Ukrainian Network of the HIV-Positive People” passed 2,000 postcards to Viktor Yanukovych asking him to help their HIV-positive relatives receive the medications. According to the last information, now there are 360,000 HIV-positive people in Ukraine; 92,000 of these people need the urgent treatment and children make a considerable part of them. Thus, according to the Ukrainian Charitable Organization “The Ukrainian Network of the HIV-Positive People,” on July 1, 2011, nearly 2,500 HIV-positive children are treated for the money from the state budget. However, the number of those who suffer from AIDS/HIV or whose parents or relatives are HIV-positive is 10 times higher.
“The little Ukrainians believe that they and their relatives will have the future if they write a postcard to Viktor Yanukovych. They believe in him like they believe in Santa Claus,” says Lada Bulakh, Head of the Kyiv Local Department of the abovementioned organization. “They hope that their work is not useless and they will be heard.”
By the way, the post-cards that their senders hope to reach the president and members of the government were created by the famous Ukrainian painter Yevhenia Hapchynska.
According to the information from the Ministry of Public Health, in 2011 the state budget has allotted 144 million hryvnias for the treatment of the HIV-positive people (the sum of money allotted according to the corresponding program “The Means To Fight HIV/ AIDS” totals 215 million hryvnias). In order to resolve the problem of the purchase of the additional antiretroviral drugs the Ukrainian minister of public health addressed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine asking to additionally allocate 82,625,530 hryvnias from the budget in 2011. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine charged the Ministry of Finance to resolve this question. According to the Ministry of Public Health press-office, in 2012 the government is going to additionally allot 106 million hryvnias for this purpose. It is reported that it will allow the ministry meeting its commitments in 2012 to continue treating the patients and provide the treatment for 5,500 patients receiving the antiretroviral therapy from the Global Fund.
COMMENTARY
Dmytro SHEREMBEI, Deputy Head of the Coordination Council of the Ukrainian Charitable Organization “The Ukrainian Network of the HIV-Positive People”:
“Those letters are the last hope for our children to be heard. AIDS is not just a disease but the epidemic. We hope that the prime-minister will do the president’s errand to stop the epidemic and will support the request of the Ministry of Public Health for the complete funding of the medications for the HIV-positive people. Today over 25,000 Ukrainians receive treatment for AIDS and 8,300 people are waiting for the treatment. In order to save the people and stop the epidemic in the country we need to provide all the AIDS patients with the essential treatment. If the HIV-positive people receive the medications they lead the normal life and cannot contaminate the healthy people. The whole world has acknowledged that the complete treatment of the AIDS patients is economically reasonable and is the best prevention of the disease. The early treatment prescription costs for the government minimum 2,110 hryvnias per year but if postponed for two or more years after the disease is diagnosed this treatment annually loads the state budget four times as much.”
