Society still rejects AIDS patients

On Monday, at the Hilton, the Azerbaijani representation of the EU held an event on the fight against AIDS.

As the head of representation Roland Kobia said, every day 7,400 people worldwide are infected with the disease. In Azerbaijan, the EU funds seven projects to fight AIDS. The authors of the projects reported on their activities. According to them, the projects cover educational activities, protection of the rights of AIDS patients, as well as a network of people in this category.

Representatives of the women’s association Leader reported the results of the survey conducted by the project. As it turned out, 81% of the respondents cannot get information about the virus, 78% believe the risk of contracting the disease is through a blood transfusion, and 83% - by casual sex. Abnormal is also the attitude to AIDS patients. Only 16% of the respondents have a positive attitude with regard to such patients. 65% of the respondents prefer to stay away from contact with them. It was noted that the rights of these people are not protected as necessary - they do not receive the required level of medical care and have problems with integration into society. There are problems in children born to AIDS patients. Moreover, there are no statistics on the latter fact.

Along with these projects also implemented are projects to combat drugs. Of the 27 thousand drug addicts, 511 are women. On the matter of treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts, women are discriminated against and the efforts to save them are insufficient.

The head of the UNICEF office in Azerbaijan Mark Hereward called 2011 a turning point in the field of AIDS. According to him, the number of HIV infections has reduced recently.

The head of Center for AIDS Esmira Almamedova noted that Azerbaijan is among the countries where the virus is developed on the lowest level. -05S04-