Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian, 28 Nov 03
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Nov 28, 2003

Lapushenko said the basic tasks of the fifth national HIV prevention programme is to mobilize and broaden political support for the programme at all levels, to work to change behaviour that puts the public at risk among various social groups, in particular the 15-24 age group, to eliminate the risk of infection from donated blood, to reduce the number of cases of the transmission of HIV from mother to child, and to provide access to diagnosis, treatment and care of the sick.

The programme will help significantly to reduce the number of HIV-positive people in Ukraine, and raise the level of public awareness of this disease.

Health Ministry figures announced at the news conference said that on 1 January 2003 there were 60,319 Ukrainians and 305 foreigners registered as HIV-positive in Ukraine. Among the HIV-positive Ukrainians are 5,857 children, of whom 5,726 were born from HIV-positive mothers.

In the first ten months of this year alone 7,963 citizens and two foreigners were registered as having AIDS. In the same period 1,516 children were diagnosed as HIV-positive. A total of 1,461 adults and 512 children developed AIDS in this period, and 996 adults and 31 children died of the disease.

Donetsk region is the most infected with 12,858 HIV-positive cases. Dnipropetrovsk Region has 11,008, Odessa Region 8,971, Mykolayiv Region 4,026, Crimea 2,988 and Kiev 2,271.