An international conference on "Development of the effectivenationalpolicyinHIV/AIDSanddrugs" initiated by the Open Society Institution and supported by Canadian Agency on International Developmenthad place in Dushanbe on November 21 - 24 in Dushanbe.
This fatal disease and drugs are lately more and more often mentioned in close junction because in vast majority cases the infection is proven to come on the tip of drug-injected needle. In case we keep going to prosecute injected drug users and put them to jails, we are in real danger to face AIDS pandemic outbreak in the nearest future.
The burning topic of the conference heated up the interest of participants - representatives of governmental structures and non-governmental organizations from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and France, number of international donor agencies, such as UNICEF, WHO, UNAIDS, DDRP, USAID, Global Fund, World Bank, IHRD.
The team of international experts from USA, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, Canada, Ireland, Ukraine and Russia set the tone of the conference. Their presentations, based on their personal working experience and recent research data caused number of heated discussions.
They introduced the regrettable statistics. 27.8 million have died before the end of 2002 from this fatal disease. In case, an effective treatment is not developed, the world can expect a peak of epidemic in 2050 - 2060th. After the disease deadly affected Africa, it started to gain a foothold on the European continent: in Ukraine, for example, 1.4% of adult population already HIV-infected...
We've got some good news also. Thailand, known as "a sexual paradise" terribly suffered from rapid AIDS spreading, recently gained success in morbidity reduction among prostitutes and got the situation under control. This phenomenon needs to be considered and well understood but we can already come to one important conclusion: the community involvement is a very effective tool.
An experience introduced by Iran, for the first time participated in the conference on harm reduction, caused a lot of interest. They combined well organized activity of law-enforcement agencies with preventive actions among risk groups and HIV-infected, syringes exchange and methadone programs. The introduced this approach structures, working in very sensitive environment with very special clients, managed to escape being blamed in Muslim's moral norms violation. This best practice might be very useful for Central Asia.
The representatives of law-enforcement agencies also informed conference about positive practical results of their efforts. The anti-drug agency of Tajikistan, in close cooperation with colleagues from USA and Afghanistan, recently implemented number of very successful actions against narco-traffickers on the territory of this drug-producing country. According to the Chief of the Staff Department of the Drug-Control Agency under the president of Republic of Tajikistan, the overall input of the agency results in about 60% of drugs seizure on the territory of CIS-countries.
One of every ten jail inhabitants in Russia had been prosecuted and convicted for drugs-linked crime. The similar situation formed in other countries - participants of the conference, where prisons undergone the trouble-causing transformation into narco-universities and main sources of HIV-spreading. This problem had been discussed during the special session intended to share experience in both preventive and ST programs introduced in jails, preliminary confinement departments and prisons. The experience of Kyrgyzstan that already successfully implemented preventive and substitution therapy programs in 11 penitentiary facilities had been recognized as the best practice.
Kyrgyzstan had been mentioned many times during the conference as the country-implementer of the number of progressive innovations. Specialists from all Central Asian countries and China come here to learn the experience of medical and law-enforcement agencies, social workers and non-governmental organizations in effective national policy on HIV/AIDS and addictive substances development and implementation. This activity is highly supported by number international organizations and donors.
By the way, talking about donors... The sponsoring organizations presented very impressive statistics, aloud very exciting plans and introduced best examples. But in conclusion they all had to admit lack of coordination hampering the effectiveness of their activity and efficient utilization of their investments, in row with excessive care of some organizations "to save face" regardless to the practical outcomes of their activity. The participants highlighted this negative tendency and offered to come with prospective plan of cooperative approach and efforts.
In conclusion, representatives of non-governmental organizations of Tajikistan informed conference about their activities and long-term plans, introduced a prospective plan of cooperative actions.