You're reading: French ambassador: Ukraine should tackle HIV/AIDS problem seriously

Ukraine should seriously address the problem of HIV/AIDS, and France is ready to help the country in this, French Ambassador to Ukraine Alain Remy has said.

“There is bilateral cooperation between France and Ukraine in which
France helps Ukraine, and there is assistance from international
organizations and institutions. Therefore, Ukraine, with all of these
opportunities, should now start addressing this problem very seriously,”
he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.

At the same time, Remy said that the current situation with HIV/AIDS
in Ukraine was similar to what happened in France ten years ago.
However, he believes that Ukraine now has more opportunities to resolve
this problem.

“Through cooperation programs, through the Health Ministry, through
the Red Cross, through the Foreign Ministry, we would like to help
Ukraine catch up with the backlog of ten years that we currently see,”
he said.

He also said that France was one of the major donors to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

A press release distributed to reporters says that since 2006, the
French government has supported the implementation of a joint
French-Ukrainian project of the Red Cross, which is related to HIV/AIDS
issues in the sphere of health care and support for HIV-infected persons
and those who use drugs.

The total budget for the initiative in the period from 2006 to 2013 reached EUR 900,000.

“Despite the fact that financial support for the joint
French-Ukrainian initiative of the Red Cross related to HIV/AIDS issues
will be completed in 2013, the French Red Cross is ready to provide
further technical support for its Ukrainian partners in combating this
epidemic in the country,” reads the press release.

A representative of the French Health Ministry, Stephane Mantion, in
turn, said: “The Global Fund will continue its support. We, like the Red
Cross, have almost exhausted our resources at the present stage. But if
the Global Fund provides funding in 2014, 2015 and 2016, we will
continue these support programs through the Red Cross.”

He said that there were the necessary tools to combat the spread of
HIV/AIDS and that their use in France had produced a positive result.
Now, Mantion said, the task is to make them available to the largest
possible area.

He also said that AIDS is currently seen in France as a chronic disease, like diabetes.

“It is important that local authorities and the Health Ministry
gradually assume this role of the body that supports the fight against
HIV/AIDS as it is done today by many African countries. International
assistance programs will soon exhaust themselves, and it must be
addressed at the national level as it happens, for example, with
diabetes,” Mantion said.