A four-day seminar for public sector workers from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan started its work at the AIDS combating centre of Sughd Region [northern Tajikistan], in the region’s administrative centre [Khujand], 15 October. The seminar has been arranged as part of the "Social accompaniment" project of the AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW) which is being carried out in a number of pilot districts in these Central Asian countries.

The AFEW director for Central Asia, Nicholas Kanto [name transliterated], said that at present, we had a chance to control [the spread of] the HIV/AIDS epidemic and we must not miss this opportunity.

"The purpose of this project is not the distribution of condoms and syringes alone. On the whole, we are making efforts aimed at decreasing and controlling the number of patients [sentence as published]. We work with a risk group, namely drug users, those who offer sexual services and prisoners. While providing them with social (finding a job and accommodation), legal (helping with preparing [documents for applying for] citizenship and other types of documents) and medical (distributing medicines free of charge) assistance, it is very important that we remember that these people have equal rights like any other member of society. If we treat them differently, this may possibly become a reason for the spread [growth] of the number of patients. According to official data, the number of HIV/AIDS sufferers has currently reached nearly 16,000. However, the real figure is from five to 10 times bigger. Suppose that some 100,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers live in Central Asia, and this testifies to a tendency towards an increase in the number of infected people," Nicholas Kanto said.

The director of the Sughd regional AIDS centre, Habibullo Orifov, said a single common project was required for the Central Asian countries in order to achieve good results in their work.

"There is a need for a single project for the Central Asian countries to fight this disease. We have recently worked out a project for the period of 2007-10, and we will be working in keeping with the plan of this project," Orifov said.

The "Social accompaniment" project was initially launched by the AFEW in all the four Central Asian countries in 2005. The project is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.