Ukraine

The Problem

Injecting drug use has been the driver behind the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine and its impact on drug users remains deadly: they accounted for over 70% of the registered HIV positive population in 2004.
 
But, as the epidemic ages, the disease is starting to spread in new ways. More and more people, especially women, are becoming infected through heterosexual transmission: in 1996, women comprised 23.5% of the registered HIV positive population. By 2002, this had risen to 40%.  This leads to increasing numbers of children infected, affected or orphaned by the disease. 
 
The impact of the epidemic on another high-risk group, men who have sex with men (MSM), is less well known, in part owing to the extreme stigma they face. Few HIV/AIDS services target their needs and few MSM are willing to come forward and get the help they need.
 

Our Response

EJAF supports efforts to get HIV positive injecting drug users off drugs, onto antiretroviral therapy (ART) treatment programmes and onto the path of longer, healthier lives.  
 
We are currently prioritising projects that inform and provide treatment for women and that work to prevent children of HIV positive parents from being placed in orphanages, ending up on the street and suffering discrimination or physical hardship. We are also one of the few organisations supporting HIV/AIDS services to MSM in Ukraine. 
 
The All Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS aims to champion the needs of all these groups, so over the past five years we have provided support to enable it to become one of the most successful networks of its kind in the world.
 

For more information on some of our current programmes, please click on one of the projects featured above.
 

To learn more about our current funding priorities and application procedure for Ukraine please click on the 'Grant Strategy' link to the left of this page.