How do you fight HIV infections in the midst of a war? That’s a question that’s been bedeviling Ukraine since the Russian invasion of February 2022. It’s a critical issue for a country that, with an estimated 245,000 people living with HIV , has the second highest incidence of the infectious disease in Europe after Russia, with the virus typically spreading through contaminated blood, sexual contact and shared needle usage. “After the fall of the Soviet Union, injectable drug use was very, very high across all former USSR countries,” says Dr.
Ksenia Voronova, an infectious diseases doctor who works for AIDS Healthcare Foundation Ukraine. “There were a lot of cheap, high purity drugs, and people would gather together and share needles. It was one of the main reasons for the fast spread of HIV.
“ A threat to past progress Ukraine turned the corner in its battle to control HIV in 2012, when the annual rates of new infections declined for the very first time, from 17,300 people being newly infected with the virus in 2011 to 16,847 the following year. This reduction followed the implementation of contact tracing to rapidly identify newly infected individuals and provide them with access to antiretroviral drugs that suppress the virus. Injectable drug users were offered opioid substitution therapy such as methadone or buprenorphine, which provided them with a pathway to stabilize and eventually tackle their addiction.
“Ukraine has always been, I believe, at the fore.