DUSHANBE, July 10, 2010, Asia-Plus — A new regional program in Tajikistan – HIV/AIDS and Preventing Addiction in Central Asia, launched by German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), provides for increase in a number of organizations dealing with raising AIDS and addiction awareness among youth within the first two years of the project implementation, Ms. Mavjiqul Azizulloyeva, the national coordinator of the project, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
The project targets Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and the project implementation partners in Tajikistan are the Committee for Youth, Sports and Tourism Affairs and the Ministry of Health.
“The project will set up a resource center in each of these countries; these centers will be dedicated to develop the regional experiences in preventing HIV/AIDS and drug addiction,” said Azizulloyeva, “By the end of the first phase of the project, at least five partners from among NGOs working with drug-dependent persons will be set up in each of the three countries.”
Experiences gained from the project will be introduced into the national and regional dialogue that is shaping youth and drug policies.
According to the medical statistics from the Ministry of Health (MoH), there are 7,955 officially registered drug-dependent persons in Tajikistan and people under the age of 30 constitute some 60 percent of them.
As of July 1, 2010, there were 2,204 officially registered HIV sufferers in Tajikistan; 458 of them are women. Intravenous drug use, which is one of the main factors contributing to the spread of HIV in Tajikistan, accounts for more than 50 percent of identified HIV cases in the country.
HIV sufferers and drug dependent persons have been registered in 60 of 68 cities and districts of the country.
Director of the Republican AIDS Prevention Center, Alijon Soliyev, says 261 HIV sufferers have died in Tajikistan in recent years.
