Spread of HIV-AIDS in Ukraine is "catastrophic," says Holbrooke (07/25/04)

Spread of HIV-AIDS in Ukraine is "catastrophic," says Holbrooke

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Briefing representatives of Ukrainian American organizations here on July 20 about his recent trip to Ukraine, Richard Holbrooke, the veteran diplomat now advising the John F. Kerry presidential campaign, made a special appeal to them on a subject they do not frequently address: the alarming spread of HIV-AIDS in Ukraine.

Using such terms as "alarming," "tragic" and catastrophic," he called on them to do all in their power to convince the government and its agencies and non-governmental organizations in Ukraine to take the spread of AIDS seriously.

Ambassador Holbrooke, who also serves as president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV-AIDS, presented the latest data on the spread of that disease and asked Ukrainian community representatives to do the math along with him:

With a population of under 50 million, Ukraine has about 460,000 HIV-positive cases, or about 1 percent of the population.
China, which along with India was singled out at a recent international conference on HIV-AIDS in Bangkok for the critical situations there, has 1.3 billion people, or about 65 times the population of Ukraine, and 1 million of them are HIV-positive - only twice the number of Ukraine.

"You can do the math. That means that Ukraine is 32 times as infected as China," he said. And its growth rate is worse than in Africa. Those who are infected in Ukraine - sailors, prostitutes and intravenous drug users - constitute what he called "a perfect trifecta to turn this from 1 percent into a major, major crisis, which will wreck the economy of Ukraine."

Two important indicators about Ukraine have come out recently, he said: it had the world's highest economic growth rate of 11 percent last year as well as the highest growth rate in HIV-AIDS.

"The reason AIDS is the most dangerous health crisis in human history," he explained, "is because it incubates in a person's body for seven to 10 years without any external signs. If you don't know you have it, you're spreading it. And, according to the United Nations, 95 percent of the people who have it don't know they have it."

A person who gets AIDS has two options: either the person dies or lives on anti-retroviral drugs for the rest of his life - at a cost of from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year.

"The cost breaks the society," Mr. Holbrooke said.

The Global Business Coalition on HIV-AIDS which he heads will be sending a team to Ukraine in the near future, he said. "But I beg you, as the influentials of the Ukrainian American community, to tell all your friends in Ukraine that they have to get with the program. And that includes civic organizations, NGOs and the government - which is not doing what it should."

Some individuals and organizations in Ukraine are doing a good job in trying to fight the epidemic, he said, singling out President Leonid Kuchma's daughter, Olena Franchuk, and her Anti-AIDS Foundation, which is running a good public service ad campaign on television, and the international tennis star Andriy Medvedev.

The Global Fund on HIV-AIDS, one-third of which comes from the U.S., budgeted $95 million for Ukraine, but only $700,000 of the amount has been distributed because of what he termed "massive misuse and abuse." As a result, the program is now being suspended.

"That is a tragedy," he said. "Ukraine has lost $95 million that it could have been spending on this because they couldn't get their act together in the government." He added, "This is catastrophic."

"I urge all of you to get involved in this. That is a critical issue," Ambassador Holbrooke said.

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