Kyiv, 30 April 2014 – Volodymyr Zhovtyak, Head of the Coordination Council of the Charity Organization “All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH” at a briefing in the Ukraine Crisis Media Center called the government to allocate funds for antiretroviral treatment for HIV-positive people, urged pharmaceuticals companies to decrease the price of the medicine to last year’s level: “For the first time in its years of independence Ukraine has achieved decrease of epidemic level of HIV infection and 10% mortality decrease from AIDS. Due to the current 40% inflation rate and due to 7% VAT on medicine we can loose those results to which we were heading for over 10 years”.
According to Mr. Zhovtyak 25K HIV-positive patients may loose their lives, having infected before that hundreds thousands more people if the state fails to provide them with the necessary medicine. “The price of life of one person is $147 – that the exact sum of money required for antiretroviral treatment of one HIV-infected”, he underlined.
Olena Eshchenko, Acting Head of State Service of Ukraine for combating HIV/AIDS and other socially dangerous diseases, added: “Previous state financing programme was covering only 45% of the needs that’s why we cooperated closely with international organizations. However we won’t be able to cover the needs of all HIV-positive patients with donor financing only. Those HIV-positive patients live believing that their disease is not a sentence and that in our state help and a chance to life can be provided to them”.
Photo: dyvys.in
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