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BISHKEK March 21 (TCA Editions) ? Any delay in the fight against HIV and AIDS will have disastrous consequences, said Kyrgyzstan?s deputy prime minister, Nur uulu Dosbol, during a conference on HIV in Central Asia in Bishkek on March 11-13.
The international community has acknowledged that despite a vigorous campaign to fight HIV, the virus continues to pose a global health, social, legal, and economic threat, he said.
Sufferers in Central Asia are not guaranteed access to treatment and the spread of the virus among vulnerable groups is not properly controlled. All of the Central Asian states need more qualified medical consultants and a further reaching strategy for testing individuals, the deputy PM added.
Central Asia AIDS Control Project (CAAP) executive director, Prof. Tilek Meimanaliev, warns that the region could be moving into an epidemic. A US sponsored survey in 2006 found that five per cent of the population was HIV positive in some areas.
In Kyrgyzstan, the southern region of Osh has become the epicentre for new cases. The Kyrgyz health ministry has recorded a total of 1,535 cases of infection among the total population of five million, a 15-fold increase on the level recorded in 2002. Almost half of all HIV sufferers live in the Osh region, and one-third live in Osh city.
Health minister Marat Mambetov says that 42 children and one medical worker in the oblast have tested positive in the past six months. It is unclear how they contracted the virus and a special commission is still looking into possible sources and pregnant women now undergo HIV tests as a precaution. Around 10,700 women in Osh oblast have been tested for the virus with seven found to be positive.
In order to better understand how the virus spreads and curb infection rates, a second generation surveillance technique recommended by the World Heath Organisation is being employed in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
The monitoring tool, which enables health ministries to make better use of its data on HIV, helps to explore the dynamics of HIV infection and evaluate the effectiveness of various preventative programs.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), CAAP and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), helped to introduce the system in Central Asia by offering financial and technical support.
The US Government, through USAID and CDC and its major role in the Global Fund, plans to fund three HIV and AIDS programs in Central Asia to help local governments monitor the spread of the virus, says US Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic, Marie L. Yovanovitch.
CAAP is stepping up efforts to gather more information on the spread of the disease through 13 pilot projects in four of the Central Asian states.
The results of successful programs conducted in other parts of the world testify that HIV prevention and treatment programs can be effective when civil society is involved, says Nur uulu Dosbol.
The CAAP Project, funded by the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), under the auspices of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), is aimed at preventing an HIV epidemic in Central Asia by strengthening cooperation between public, nongovernmental and private sectors.
Kyrgyzstan has received $61 million from USAID to fight the virus, according to USAID Regional Mission Deputy Director Thomas Delaney.
In 2006, at least 119 children and babies contracted the virus after receiving treatment in hospitals in Shymkent in the south of Kazakhstan. Doctors in the region have invited medical professionals from Kyrgyzstan to teach them new testing methods. Testing can now be done using saliva samples rather than blood.
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