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OUR LIFE Monthly, published by Ukrainian National Women's League o f America Vol. LVIII SEPTEMBER 2001 Editor: TAMARA STADNYCHENKO FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT Dear UNWLA members and readers of Our Life : I would like to brief you about an event that happened at the United Nations in June of this year. The UN General Assembly, in its resolution 55/13, which was adopted on November 3, 2000, voted to hold a special session to review and address all aspects of the problem of HIV/AIDS. The session, conducted from June 25 to June 27, 2001, highlighted the need for a concerted response to the epidemic. The General Assembly determined that the key to corrective measures was universal support for the further implementation of the Programme of Action proposed at the International Conference on Population and Development, which was held in Cairo in 1994. Ukraine was one of the initiators of convening the special session. This was the first-ever special session dealing with a health issue— HIV/AIDS — that is a global problem of catastrophic proportions. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on member states and private foundations to fund the research and prevention programs. Vitaliy Moskalenko, Minister of Healthcare of Ukraine, headed the Ukrainian delegation which participated in the session. In his remarks, the Minister stated that there are more than thirty-eight thousand officially registered HIV-infected people in Ukraine. Among these are two thousand people living with AIDS and out of these, more than a thousand have already died. In the year 2000, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed a decree, which provides for the implementation of emergency measures aimed at preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine. One of the first laws adopted in Ukraine after independence was a law on the prevention of AIDS and protection of the population. Ukraine has subsequently developed an elaborate national testing system, which can also meet the demands of neighboring states. The HIV/AIDS epidemic struck Ukraine immediately after the Chomobyl catastrophe. The evidence of our political will is the recent decision of Ukraine’s president to proclaim the year 2002 as the Year of Combating AIDS in Ukraine. A global view of HIV infection was reported by the World Health Organization, which published the following information. Infection rates are climbing ominously in Central and Eastern Europe, where overlapping epidemics of HIV are resulting from injecting drug users and unprotected sex; most of the quarter million people who became infected in 2000 were men. New epidemics have emerged in Estonia and Uzbekistan, while in Ukraine, 240,000 people were living with HIV/AIDS in 1999. While governments were deliberating, NGOs held workshops. One unfortunate truth that emerged from these workshops was that prevention and medication can be very costly. How will the poorest of the poor be able to get the prevention and medication if they have no food on the table? As a result, it was determined that poor countries with a high rate of HIV/AIDS should alleviate poverty first. On another note, dear UNWLA members, September is upon us and after a summer hiatus, we are resuming our work in full swing. The people of Ukraine need our help now more than ever before, but in being generous, we must keep in mind the needs of our own organization. Our finances are limited and supported only with contributions to the O. Lotocky Fund. The recent increase in postal rates has impacted upon mailing costs associated with the distribution of Our Life. We thank you for your generous contributions to all of our causes, and ask you for your continued support.
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