Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) successfully hands over HIV/AIDS project to the medical staff in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova which, for political reasons, has remained highly isolated from international assistance. As the problem is particularly acute in the prison system, MSF has prolonged its services to prisons until April 2009, when is scheduled to be handed over to the medical department of the local prison authorities.
MSF teats HIV/AIDS patients in prisons and in the civil sector of Transnistria.
Photo by Alexander Gyadyelov
According to official data, the HIV prevalence in Transnistria is four times higher than in Moldova and this has been attributed to the region's exclusion for assistance to treat and fight the disease. There were no medicines for the treatment of HIV or opportunistic infections, no possibility for diagnostics for patients and hardly any medical expertise in this area. People living with HIV/AIDS were simply abandoned to their fate.
MSF’s programme was set up in 2007 to urgently address the needs of the HIV positive population. The programme’s activities included medical work in the co-infection ward of the Bender TB hospital, the in-patient department in Slobozia, a polyclinic in Ribnitsa and work in three prisons of Transnistria. In addition to providing treatment, MSF has encouraged international actors and donors to raise awareness about the situation in Transnistria.
Currently about 860 patients have been enrolled into the programme and more than 135 patients receive antiretroviral medicines. In 2008 Global Fund ARV drugs that were available in Moldova gradually began to become available in Transnistria.