Ukraine's Aids Racket Our World

Now, in Our World, we travelled to the Ukraine to investigate why the

country has the fastest growing AIDS worst HIV epidemic in Europe.

Initially fuelled by rampant drug use, infection has been rising here

I'm more than anywhere else on the earth. -- by more than anywhere

else. Today, many go untreated. They have to fight off police

intimidation and steep social millions of dollars have been poured

into fighting this epidemic. I am in the Ukraine to find out why people

here with HIV are more likely to die of AIDS than their counterparts in

to find, but alcohol and cheap drugs are everywhere. I have come to see a

former drug addict who is HIV-positive, living in this town,

substitute with her boyfriend. Since then, she has spent two years in

prison and lost more than a dozen of her school friends to drugs and

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accidentally by being diagnosed with hepatitis, but local clinic did not

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of the world 's fastest-growing HIV academic. -- epidemics. Globally,

infection and mortality rates have been falling for years, but not in

Ukrainians are living with HIV, fewer than one in six receives

treatment. By contrast, some sub-Saharan Africa in countries like

Botswana and Rwanda managed to provide 80% of their infected

pharmacy near the president's office are fearing that access to

anti-retroviral drugs could soon be even more difficult. The government

wants a new law to force control on a patient's pressure group. He

accuses the health Ministry of embezzling money that should be used

to treat patients. He believes that anti-retrovirals are bored at hugely

inflated prices and that officials outskirts of the town. -- me to

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strength to carry on from her family and from doctors at one key facility

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clinic in central Kiev for checkups clinic, it opens the Ukraine's first

HIV clinic in 1989, only six years after the first cases of AIDS were

Ukrainians who actually get anti-retroviral treatment. The

clinic supplies 1800 outpatients with the drugs and trains doctors

not want to be identified has little faith in his doctor in his

most serious cases. For many, this is their refuge and last hope. This

small clinic isn't enough. This is a country where the death rate is

still climbing, even though it has come down in most of the world,

including the worst hit region, uncertain. The head doctor explains

her clinic occupies a valuable piece of real estate in the city centre.

For two years, she has come under century Hurley centre of Orthodox

Christianity in the Slav world. -- early centre. In a television

interview, the Archbishop of them honestly made it clear what he

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thought of his neighbours. -- Church and state are closely

entwined, as they are a cross the border in Russia. Although the

monastery is a Ukrainian Orthodox, it is under the control of someone

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Do you take that message across But the clinic will be split in two

and relocated in separate parts of the cattle. One is his refurbished

building on the outskirts of the city. It has seven birds and is a

long way away from the train station and it makes access more

difficult. The move is to take But some in Ukraine refused to be

marginalised and are fighting back. Liza Yaroshenko was born HIV-

positive and lost her mother to AIDS when she was six years old.

Although she tries to live like any 14-year-old, she knows these pills

Liza has an awful lot of different pills to take and she has to take

them at the same time every day. Last December, Liza became the

youngest person to address the Ukrainian Parliament. She asked MPs

to ensure proper funding for HIV patients. But she claims a few

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staff members at her school were I took an overnight train to Odessa,

which over a decade ago was the Even when programmes have been

introduced to help addicts and prevent HIV, the authorities are

In this clinic, patients are prescribed artificial opiates like

methadone, which is safer than injecting street drugs. Sebina, one

of the patients is grateful. Now, my life has changed. It has changed

because of the methadone? Yes. When I'd come to the methadone therapy,

I was broken. My soul was broken. And now I am like a phoenix.

are like a phoenix, you have been reborn? Yes. Because this programme

has given me so much. So much. Sebina and others claim they have

been harassed by law-enforcement. They say it is because police make

money from the addicts. It is an easy allegation to make, but is

there any proof that the police are mixed up in this business, they are

selling drugs? They sell heroin, opium and other drugs. And I know

it's in 100 people, I know it. Because my brother was working in

this department. Your brother was a police officer? He was.

Substitution therapy remains controversial and is banned in

neighbouring Russia. Are Ukraine's law enforcers so dishonest they are

blocking a programme which has successfully cut HIV infection

rates in many other countries? In Kiev, I speak to the interior

Once part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has, over the past 20 years,

struggled to assert its independence. If the western half

of this country of 46 million is drawn to the European Union, the

eastern regions back close ties to In an echo of recent legislation in

Russia, there are plans to ban so- called homosexual propaganda. Some

fear it will further stigmatise Ukraine's male, gay community. This

newly-created Committee for tackling HIV and AIDS, is having

its first meeting in the Parliament. I grab the chance to ask the deputy

chairwoman about the draft law. Won't it make one high risk group

We have to find out the risk group. Such attitudes are widespread, some

would say dangerous given the Government spends nothing in

The global fund helped finance backed by the form Microsoft boss,

Bill Gates, is spending $92 million a year in tackling AIDS here. But

they are no longer channelling it through the Government, fearing the

money was being stolen or wasted. It is now going through and a non-

Government organisation called the AIDS Alliance instead. This group

works on the frontline of the epidemic, among drug-users and sex

The Alliance has a mobile testing Tonight, they are paying a house

call, taking boxes of clean syringes and condoms to the flat of

Vladimira now gives addicts like this a chance to exchange syringes

Despite the corruption, the stigma and the lack of Government support,

there is hope that the next generation will be better equipped

Viktoria is now trying to raise awareness in her hometown, but a

diagnosis of HIV need not be a Liza and Viktoria, people with

first-hand experience are pioneers of this new consciousness. I asked

Liza that if being HIV-positive But foreign money is running out

fast, funds for prevention and medicines are only guaranteed until

2016. The death toll is still rising, but tackling the epidemic

is not high on the political agenda. The rest of the world may be