As of October 1, 2020, 12,876 officially confirmed HIV sufferers have been reported in Tajikistan, Alijon Soliyev, Deputy Director of the Republican AIDS Center, told Asia-Plus Tuesday afternoon.
Out of this total, 8,228 are men, 4,648 are women, and 1,070 are children under the age of 18, Soliyev said.
In the territorial cross section the official numbers of HIV sufferers are: Dushanbe – 2,738; districts subordinate to the center (RRP) – 2,755; Sughd province – 2,959; Khatlon province – 3,170, and Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) – 714.
According to him, 3,547 HIV sufferers have died in Tajikistan since the first case of HIV was reported in the country in 1991.
Recall, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in September awarded a new five-year project to combat HIV/AIDS in Tajikistan under the title, “Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control.” The project is a global initiative that will provide strategic technical assistance and deliver health services directly to achieve HIV epidemic control and improve HIV case finding, prevention, treatment programming, and viral load suppression.
The project activities are being implemented in Dushanbe, districts subordinate to the center, and Sughd province. Working in partnership with the Republican AIDS Center and local community-based organizations, the project will introduce innovations and expand HIV services to unprecedented levels of scale, coverage, quality, effectiveness, and efficiency. The project will focus its activities on key populations at heightened risk of HIV infection.
Each year, the world commemorates World AIDS Day on December 1. People around the world unite to show support for people living with HIV and to remember those who have died from AIDS-related illnesses. Each World AIDS Day focuses on a specific theme, which this year is “Ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Resilience and Impact.” World AIDS Day was first observed in 1988.
World AIDS Day is one of the eleven official global public health campaigns marked by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with World Health Day, World Blood Donor Day, World Immunization Week, World Tuberculosis Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Malaria Day, World Hepatitis Day, World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, World Patient Safety Day and World Chagas Disease Day.
