Meeting with the city officials of Belgorod-Dnestrovski

The team of the pilot project “The stable HIV-prevention services” had conducted the planned official meeting with the deputies of the Belgorog-Dnestrovski city administration corpus.

The team of the newly organized HIV prevention project in the city of Belgorod-Dnestrovski and the city region – had meet with the City Council Deputy Olga Tsipulenko, the heads of the city council members, Ruslan Sulakov, Igor Desyatnikov and Vitali Grajhdan, Leonid Kondratyuk and the depities Vasili Leontiev and Viktor Grozny.
The topic of the meeting was to prepare the plan for 2016-2020 for the HIV-prevention  project, technically supported by “The Way Home” Charity Foundation in frames of the bigger project “The Sustainability of the HIV-prevention services in the area”.
The aim of the project is to increase the rate of illness and death from HIV-infection: creating the high quality system of services for the prevention of the disease among the most risky groups of population of the city. The official city statistics shows 327 HIV infected people, including 20 children. But according to the independent research within the project,  the real number of infected people is around 565 (aging 15 and more) – which is 1.13 % from the city population. And even more people are in high need of the HIV-prevention services in the city – the total number of people of the risk groups is 10420 people.
Elena Teryaeva, the legal consultant of the project for the advocacy matters says:“The technical assistance to the patients now is supports by the “optimal rout” of the patient. Organizing the “rout” along the services for the HIV prevention – the patientor the member of the risk group now have easier access to the medical and social services within the city structures.  And the future approval of the official city program of the HIV-prevention will highly widen the access to the counseling and medical testing for the people who might need it.  In case of the positive HIV test, the program will allow to organize the easier way to provide the patient the treatment services».

The total number of people having a high risk to get infected by HIV in Belgorod-Dnestrovski is 10420 .

«Also within the project it will be possible to implement the social service procurement, with the city administration to choose in the open competition the NGO with which they will work within HIV social services.  It will be the fully accomplished program – allowing the recipient from the risk groups to finally reach the family doctor for the testing. NGO making social projects have a much better access to the risk groups and having a common prevention project and the result of our common work will be much more effective’ – said the consultant of the pilot-project and a deputy of the city Council Vitali Grozov.
During the meeting on September 9, 2016, the specialists have resumed that the city HIV-prevention program “The sustainability of the HIV-services” was built in accordance to the regional program of HIV-prevention of 2016=2018 . The city program is being organized in cooperation with the city Hearth department, is considering all the necessary aspects for its best effectiveness.
The secretary of the city Council Olga Tsypulenko stated that the need of the city towards the HIV-prevention program for a long time has been very high, and the need to approve the program is urgent.  In general, the heads of the city administrational organizations have positively reflected the information provided at the meeting as well as the idea to start the official project for the HIV/ AIDS  soon.   The head of the depurate committee the therapist Igor desyatnik had said that  in 2017 most of the rapid tests will be given by the donor organizations, since it is hard to organize this through the budget of the city. He is highly encouraged the soonest start of the project.   Leonid Kondratyuk, the heat of the budget and finances council of the city had said: “We should organize such , meeting more often. We have discussed a lot of necessary questions regarding the topic.  We have discussed the pilot-project, gave the city officials the important information on the risk groups,  and the importance of the HIV prevention among  these groups of people”», said Leonid Kondratyuk, the hear physician of the “Belgorod-Dnestrovsk Hospital number 2 for skin diseases and STD ” Leonid Kondratyuk shared the hope that the members of administrational organizations will spread the information on the project as well as the importance of the project  inside their organizations and that the program will be approved.