KHOROG, March 16, 2009, Asia-Plus — Three new cases of HIV detected in Gorno Badakhshan since the beginning of this year have brought an official number of people living with HIV in the region to 104, Maram Azizmamadov, the head of the public association Volunteer, told Asia-Plus today.
PA Volunteer is implementing the project, Alternative: Me or HIV, in the region. According to Azizmamadov, the new tree cases have been detected during medical examination by the GBAO regional AIDS Center of 500 labor migrants.
“Injecting drug users (IDUs) constitute more than 90 percent of the officially registered HIV sufferers in Gorno Badakhshan,” the Volunteer head said.
He further added that real number of HIV sufferers in the region was much higher than official figures showed. “I assumed that the number of HIV sufferers in the region is much higher than the official data shows,” Azizmamadov said, noting that the number of cases of contracting the infection through sexual contacts is increasing.
The Volunteer head called poor HIV/AIDS awareness of the population, heroin addiction and labor migration as well as insufficient financing of the HIV/AIDS-prevention measures as main factors contributing to the spread of HIV infection in the region. “The majority of donors are based in Dushanbe and only Oxfam Novib (AFEW), Open Society Institute Tajikistan (OSI-Tajikistan), the Global Fund and CARHAP Program (DFID) have supported measures to prevent spread of HIV/AIDS in Gorno Badakhshan,” Azizmamadov said.
According to official data, more than 700 IDUs have been registered in the region, while from the total number of HIV sufferers here, only 12 are undergoing antiretroviral therapy under financial support of the Global Fund, he said.
