Tag: PLHIV

Protection and continuity of health and HIV services in Ukraine

Posted on by Milutin

From the UNAID statement

Amidst the ongoing military offensive against Ukraine, The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is calling for the protection of health workers and uninterrupted continuation of HIV and health services for all people, including people living with and affected by HIV. Ukraine has the second largest AIDS epidemic in the region. It is estimated that there are 250 000 people living with HIV in Ukraine, 156 000 of whom are on antiretroviral therapy, medication that needs to be taken daily for people to remain alive and well.

“People living with HIV in Ukraine only have a few weeks of antiretroviral therapy remaining with them, and without continuous access their lives are at risk,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director. “The hundreds of thousands of people living with and affected by HIV in Ukraine must have unbroken access to life-saving HIV services, including HIV prevention, testing and treatment.”

To date, the Government of Ukraine, together with civil society and international organizations, has implemented one of the largest and most effective HIV responses in Eastern Europe and central Asia. However, with the ongoing military offensive, the efforts and gains made in responding to HIV are in serious risk of being reversed, putting even more lives in danger.

The right to health and access to HIV services must always be protected, and health workers, representatives of civil society and their clients must never be targets in a conflict. The ongoing military conflict has affected everyone in Ukraine but is likely to be particularly hard for people living with HIV and key populations, including people who use drugs, sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men and transgender people.

As highlighted by the United Nations Secretary-General, the United Nations is committed to support people in Ukraine, who have already suffered from “so much death, destruction and displacement” from the military offensive, in their time of need.

With the support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and UNAIDS, the Government of Ukraine and civil society partners have delivered HIV prevention and treatment services for people living with HIV and key populations across Ukraine for many years and stand ready to give further support during the ongoing crisis.

UNAIDS staff remain on the ground in Ukraine, working to ensure that people living with HIV and key populations in Ukraine have continued access to life-saving services, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable civilians. UNAIDS will continue to support HIV prevention, testing, treatment, care and support for people across Ukraine affected by the crisis.

 

Candlelight Memorial in Serbia

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The International AIDS Candlelight Memorial, coordinated by the Global Network of People living with HIV (GNP+), is one of the world’s oldest and largest grassroots mobilization campaigns for HIV awareness in the world. Started in 1983, the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial takes place every third Sunday in May and is led by a coalition of community organizations in many countries.

The Candlelight Memorial serves as a community mobilization campaign to raise social consciousness about HIV and AIDS. With 38 million people living with HIV today, the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial serves as an important intervention for global solidarity, breaking down barriers of stigma and discrimination and giving hope to new generations.

Due to extraordinary situation caused by the coronavirus outbreak, the Union of people living with HIV in Serbia held the Memorial on Saturday 30 May. The community members, friends, civil society activists and health institution representatives gathered in the premises of the organisation Philanthropy. We sent our thoughts and prayers to those who died of AIDS, lighted candles over the large red ribbon sign and released red balloons with messages of support for those who live with HIV.

Philanthropy prepared packages with food and hygienic materials for PLHIV in hard living conditions. Priority was given to students, unemployed, people with disability, those with severe medical problems and pensioners with monthly pensions lower than 30.000 RSD (approximately 250 EUR).

Sustainable Services for PLHIV and HIV Prevention Conference

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The Union of Organizations of Persons Living with HIV/AIDS in Serbia (USOP) hosted the international conference on Sustainable Services for PLHIV and HIV Prevention in Belgrade on November 28, 2018. This one-day conference supported by UNDP Programme in Serbia gathered 110 relevant stakeholders from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro in an attempt to move the PLHIV service agenda forward through co-thinking and cross-sectorial experience exchange.

The Conference Sustainable Services for PLHIV and HIV Prevention contributed an important piece to the puzzle of PLHIV’s health, social, economic, and overall well-being in Serbia and the region by opening up a dialogue on the cost of services for PLHIV. Through active interactions between practitioners in key sectors, public officials, service providers and service users, the conference shed a new light on prevention of HIV infection and, specifically the role of PLHIV organizations in community resilience building.

Participants agreed that investments in development of standards and services, training of service providers, piloting and testing should be respected, recognized and more readily considered by the welfare systems through urgent development of formal standards that will lead to effective service mainstreaming and access to regular service funding. In the meantime, project funding remains an interim solution but one that clearly threatens sustainability and quality of services.

Several DPNSEE member organisations representatives participated in the Conference

Community Based Services for People Living with HIV and AIDS

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The National Conference on Innovative Community Based Services for People Living with HIV and AIDS, held in Belgrade, Serbia on 1 December 2017, was also the final activity of two-year project “Towards standardization of community based social service provision for people living with HIV in Serbia”, implemented by the Union of Organizations of Serbia dealing with the protection of people living with HIV and AIDS (USOP) with partners: Žena plus, AID +, Centre AS, Sunce, Crvena linija, Stav + and Nova + (PLHIV associations from Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, Subotica and Pančevo). The project is part of the “European Union Support to an Inclusive Society” program, funded and implemented by the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans’ Affairs and Social Affairs through the IPA Program (The Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance).

The conference addressed the activities of both civil and government sectors in response to the HIV epidemic, especially when it comes to social care, health care and legal assistance to people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHIV), but also prevention and the possibility of stopping the spread of infection, as well as reducing stigma and discrimination against this population.

The services are the basic means of achieving the goals of social protection. The Law on Social Protection recognizes five groups of services for which the standards were developed by the project or are in phase of development. In addition to these, other community-based innovative services have been developed in the community to respond to a wide range of people’s needs. One of the innovative services is peer support service for people living with HIV and AIDS offered by activists living with HIV and AIDS.