On the occasion of World AIDS Day (1st December), the International Centre of Health Protection - HERA the network of Russian health NGOs and the first Russian NGO to become EPHA member, will hold a press conference with Russian media on the topic: "When You Write about Sexual Health", as well as special events to be carried out by members of HERA all over the country.
HIV and AIDS are global problems. Every minute 6 people become infected with HIV and every 5 minutes one of those infected is under 24 years old.
More than 30 million people are seropositive globally and the fastest growing infections rates are in eastern Europe and Central Asia. From January 1987 to March 2003, 232,424 persons became infected with HIV in the Russian Federation.
These are only official figures and the actual number of persons infected is significantly higher, and as a rule 9 out of 10 seropositive persons are unaware of the fact they are infected.
Experience from a number of European countries, particularly the Netherlands, have shown ’Sex Ed’ programs to be the most way to prevent HIV infections. However, in Russia this has not been adopted at Federal level because of opposition from some political groups in the Parliament (State Duma) and a lack of advocacy to change the situation.
HERA has campaigned on the urgent need for school Sexual Education programs for the last 3 years.
Financed by the European Commisison, Hera’s pilot project developed a sex education program which was implemented in 4 regions of Russia, accompanied by a media information campaign in press and advocacy actions. The results from this pilot project will be integrated into a final version of the ’State School Sex Education Programme’. This will be officially endorsed by HERA members and proposed to the Health Ministry for dissemination across Russia.
There is still a lot of work to be done to change the approach to sexual health in Russia, taking it from the policy level to the citizen’s level. This must involve empowering people to participate in policy-making.
