01.12.2009
"Learning, Learning and More Learning!"
Interview with Dr Vitali Nowoswitnij, director of the Odessa City Center for HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control (Ukraine)
Odessa has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the whole of Europe. Why is that?
Odessa was the first city in the Soviet Union where a person was discovered to have HIV. That was back in 1987. Studies have shown that the virus was first identified among foreign students. It initially spread via unprotected sexual contacts among student groups. After Ukraine gained independence in 1991 it was mostly injecting drug users who infected each other. We were really confronted with the problem from 1995. At the time there were 64 people infected with HIV in the Odessa region. My field is infectious diseases and so I knew about the virus, but we specialists were not aware of the extent of the problem. Officially around 13,500 people are infected in Odessa but the unofficial figures could be much higher. We are contending with an extremely serious situation in Ukraine at present; it is an epidemic. Odessa is one of the five cities in Ukraine with a particularly high infection rate.
What is the greatest problem?
Personally, I think that our society is not yet ready to deal seriously with this issue. The discrimination and prejudices are still far too great. It is the responsibility of the media, doctors and other institutions to inform people about how to live with the virus. It is the responsibility of those affected to live in society in freedom and in awareness of their responsibility. If the whole world and Odessa were to concentrate especially on prevention and AIDS awareness, we could get the problem relatively under control. Protected sexual intercourse is not something that everyone takes for granted here. People have not yet grasped the fact that anyone may become infected.
What can you do from the medical standpoint?
Prevention in the medical sector means handling the issue as carefully as possible, so that patients can live happily in society. For that we need to raise the level of information within the population. Since 1995 we specialists have issued a newsletter to acquaint all other specialist doctors with the issue and keep them up to date. Now we from the Odessa City Center for HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control can train doctors and medical personnel in the whole region, thanks to e support from the Lutheran World Federation and the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Ukraine. This prevention program is extremely important and we are most grateful to the sponsors.
What action has the government taken?
For a few years now we have had laws to get the epidemic under control. HIV tests and antiretroviral medications have been free of charge. The most necessary medications against opportunistic diseases are also free, but unfortunately many important ones are not on the list. In Odessa, we have been giving treatment at our out-patient city center for HIV prevention and control since 2004. In the general hospitals we have set up what we call HIV prevention rooms, each with their own doctor and nurse. You can have an anonymous, cost-free test here and receive advice and counseling. There are also laws to protect patients. That has lowered the threshold for a test. But unfortunately there is far too little money around for prevention measures, personnel and equipping the hospitals. The only thing that will really help our society is: learning, learning and more learning! It would be best to start doing that at kindergarten level.
(LWI correspondent Constanze Bandowski interviewed Dr Nowoswitnij.)
