World Health Organisation says Ukraine has the worst AIDS epidemic in Europe

(1 Dec 2012)
1. Man looking from prison hospital window
2. Wide of prison hospital
3. Close up of red cross symbol
4. Wide of doctor walking in corridor
5. Close of poster
6. Close of cell door
7. Guard closing door
8. Guards, prisoners and staff coming up the stairs
9. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Andrei Mandrykin, prisoner, HIV-positive for over 15 years:
"I feel better now, that's why the treatment is important. I was feeling very bad before I started the treatment. For the last 2 years my health has been better."
10. Close of folders
11. Wide of prisoner with guard
12. Pan from wall with pictures to HIV-positive man
13. Close-up of hands
14. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Volodymyr Tkachenko, has been living with HIV for 12 years:
"I'm glad to have therapy. Everything else I can cure, because medicine is more or less free of charge in our country. That's why the main issue for me is therapy. When I was no longer supplied the medicine I asked my wife to buy it for me in the pharmacy. And as it turned out it costs crazy money. One bottle costs nearly 100 (US) dollars and I need three for one month. To spend 300 (US) dollars for therapy in our country is a serious shock for the family budget. "
15. Close of screen with sign reading: (English) "Nine years of helping HIV-positive people. Achievements and challenges. Kyiv, 2012"
16 . Wide of conference of HIV organisations
17. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Alla Shcherbinska, deputy head of the Ukrainian AIDS Centre responsible for treating all HIV-positive people in Ukraine:
"Of the people who asked us for medical help and treatment for anti-retroviral therapy, 80 percent of them are getting it. Until the end of the year we have to help 42,000 people. Today they are 36,000, and we have one month to increase the number of people to 42,000, supply them with a treatment. This is a very difficult process."
18. Wide of conference
19. Close of photographer
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicolas Cantau, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria:
"We counted about 8,000 new MDR-TB (multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis) cases each year, detected in Ukraine. So Ukraine is among the 27 high MDR-TB (countries) in the world. And as we said, together with the spreading of Tuberculosis HIV-TB and more than HIV-TB, it's HIV and multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis and in some cases extreme-drug-resistance tuberculosis."
21. Various of HIV-positive 9-year-old child playing, who contracted HIV at birth from her mother, who's a drug user
STORYLINE:
Ukraine is witnessing one of the world's fastest growing HIV infection rates but, due to lack of funds, treatment is hard to come by.
An estimated 230,000 Ukrainians, or about 0.8 percent of people aged 15 to 49 in a population of 46 (m) million, are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Ahead of World AIDS day on Saturday, international organisations exhorted the Ukrainian government to increase funding for treatment and do more to prevent HIV from spreading from high-risk groups into the mainstream population, where it is even harder to manage and control.
Some 120,000 are in urgent need of anti-retroviral therapy, which can greatly prolong and improve the quality of their lives. But due to a lack of funds, less than a quarter are receiving the drugs - one of the lowest levels in the world.
Ukraine's AIDS epidemic is still concentrated among high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, sex workers, homosexuals and prisoners.
The girl, who contacted HIV at birth from her drug-abusing mother, has been denied a place in preschool because of her diagnosis.
Officials deny those allegations.


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