According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ukraine officially counted at the beginning of 2014 some 234,000 HIV-positive over the age of 15, and was facing the worst AIDS epidemic in Europe. However, in one of the regions of Ukraine, the Donbass region, hit by the blockade due to the conflict between Ukrainians and Ro-Russians, some 8,000 patients risk being confronted with a shortage of antiretroviral drugs.
These drugs have already been paid for and the non-governmental organization Médecins sans Frontières has undertaken to deliver them and supervise the treatments. But they are currently stranded at the checkpoints of the Ukrainian regular army. Also, stocks could be exhausted from mid-August according to Michel Kazatchkine, UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The latter took advantage of the 8th Conference on the pathogenesis, treatment and prevention of HIV which is being held until Wednesday in Vancouver (Canada) to call on Western countries to act because the sick in this conflict zone need to both antiretrovirals and heroin substitutes, such as methadone. The Pathogenesis Conference is the largest open scientific conference on issues related to HIV / AIDS. It welcomes at least 6,000 representatives from all over the world.
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