LVIV - Nov. 30, on the eve of World AIDS Day, a mobile outpatient clinic of the Salus Charitable Foundation operated on Market Square from noon till four p.m. The foundation’s head Oleksandra Sluzhynska told a press conference previously that the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine handed over 14 Bohdan-bus-mounted mobile clinics to NGOs in various regions of Ukraine. One such clinic is now run by Salus.
These mobile clinics are designed to provide medical advice and run tests to check for HIV. One of them will go around Lviv and Lviv oblast to monitor HIV/AIDS risk groups and check anyone who is willing.
Monday also saw other World AIDS Day events in Lviv. On November 24, the documentary Am Rande - Sechs Kapitel uber AIDS in der Ukraine (On the Verge. Six Chapters on AIDS in Ukraine) by the German director Karsten Hein was screened. It is meant to inform the German population about the situation with AIDS in Ukraine. Hein says that the project was aimed at detecting the reasons behind the AIDS epidemic in Ukraine: “This is my second documentary on HIV/AIDS. The first one was made before the Orange revolution. At the time HIV-positive individuals were unwilling to communicate with the crew, fearing unwelcome publicity. Everything changed after 2005. Many people agreed to be interviewed.”
When working on the documentary, Hein discovered that most HIV-positive cases in Ukraine involve injections of narcotic drugs, so a section of his film is dedicated to drug abuse and addiction. Other sections deal with tuberculosis (some 70 percent people with AIDS and HIV-positive are afflicted with it), HIV-positive children, etc.
The documentary was screened for workers in the medical sphere, institutions, civic organizations, and foundations dealing with HIV-positive people.
Hopefully, such documentaries will have a positive effect on the situation. So far HIV/AIDS statistics remain disheartening: 242 HIV cases have been registered within nine months of this year in Lviv oblast. Since the first case in 1989 and until Oct. 1, 2008, a total of 1,272 HIV and 311 AIDS cases, as well as 136 deaths (including four children) have been recorded.
According to the Chief Health Administration of Lviv Oblast, the incidence rate in 2008, compared to 2007, is up by 21.1 percent. Only one out of five Ukrainians knows his/her HIV status.
Among the HIV-positive residents in Lviv oblast, 80.6 percent are able-bodied individuals between 15 and 49 years of age. Young people aged 15-24 constitute 14.5 percent.
Cumulative statistics indicate that since 1987 (when HIV cases were first registered in Ukraine) and until July 1, 2008, a total of 131,730 HIV-positive people live in this country of which 24,719 have contracted AIDS and 13,860 died, including 245 children.
Within six months of 2008, another 9,415 HIV cases, 2,295 AIDS cases, and 1,370 deaths were recorded in Ukraine.
