HIV/AIDS

Although Tajikistan’s HIV/AIDS epidemic is still concentrated among at-risk groups, it is spreading rapidly. The number of reported HIV cases has almost tripled to 1,422 in 2008 from 541 in 2006. National AIDS Center experts estimate at least 6,800 people are living with HIV.

 

Injecting drug use is the main driver of the epidemic in Tajikistan. Over 80 percent of people living with HIV are men under 30. The country suffers from its proximity to the drug-trafficking route from Afghanistan, making drugs cheap and easily available. This, together with high youth unemployment rates, has fuelled drug use. Heterosexual transmission is rising, which also heightens the risk of mother-to child transmission.

 

TUBERCULOSIS

Tajikistan has the worst TB epidemic in the region. The number of new cases per year was estimated at 231 per 100,000 people in 2007, which is some 60 percent above the world average. Case detection of new smear-positive cases has risen from 25 percent in 2005 to 41 percent in 2008, but remains far below the 70 percent international target. The treatment success rate for new cases was officially reported at 78 percent in 2007, close to the 85 percent international goal. But insufficient human resources, weak laboratory capacity, inexistent infection control and inadequate quality control pose tremendous challenges.

 

In addition the situation in prisons is alarming: one in ten inmates has TB.

 

PROJECT FOCUS

Under the USAID Dialogue on HIV and TB Project, prevention interventions target the following populations: injecting drug users, sex workers, men who have sex with men, people living with HIV, prisoners and migrants. The project is implemented in the following sites: Dushanbe City, Vahdat District, Qurghonteppa, Kulob and Khudjand.

 

All data are taken from the October 2009 report from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria titled Regional Overview: Eastern Europe and Central Asia.