Since Russian government banned substitution therapy in Crimea on May 20 for HIV-positive drug addicts, at least 20 people died on the Crimean peninsula and 803 are stranded there and are cut off vital medication, according to the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Kyiv Pavlo Skala.
The world marked International Day against Drug Abuse on June 26.
Almost
8,300 receive substitution therapy to keep them off injected drugs,
according to the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine, an
international organization that supports Ukrainian clinics and
medical organizations in association with Geneva-based Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria organization.
Some
of those who need substitution therapy are lucky to escape. For the
last couple of days, 37-year-old
Yevgeniy from Yevpatoriya, Crimea, is searching for apartment in
Kyiv. He refused to give his last name because of fear of
discrimination due to being infected with Hepatitis C. The search for
new housing is a dramatic change from two weeks ago, when he was back
home and contemplating suicide.
Along
with 80 other refugees from Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Yevgeniy is
now back on substitution therapy.
According
to the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Russia’s ban on
substitution therapy in Crimea caused more deaths on the peninsula
from associated diseases than the whole of Ukraine had had in the
previous two years. Many of them cannot cope and go back to drugs.
“A
majority of my friends got back to illegal drug use in Yalta,”
says Ruslan, a worker of the Alliance. He did not provide his last
name because of his medical condition. “When they received
substitution therapy, they controlled pain and depression, got back
to social life and fought with diseases, but now almost all of them
have gone back to crime.”
According
to the Federal Center for AIDS Control and Prevention, in Russia,
where the government banned methadone and refuses to fund
clean-needle programs, new bloodborne infections went up by more
than 10 percent compared to 2012.
In
Crimea, the Russian government offered a detoxication program instead
of the banned methadone therapy. Detoxication is based on
psychotropic tranquilizers and painkillers, and have severe
psychological side effects, says Yevhen, who tried it out.
“I
barely survived these two weeks at the Crimean detoxication hospital.
When everything ended up I simply returned to drug use until I found
out about the Alliance program in Kyiv and now I’m here,” he
says.
According
to Tetiana Loginova, a doctor at a Kyiv addiction clinic,
detoxication treatment is extremely painful for drug addicts and very
stressful for the fragile livers of Hepatitis C patients.
Detoxication
programs can also caused comas and even deaths in HIV-positive
patients, she said.
Some
of the substitution therapy patients from Crimea and eastern Ukraine
have had to flee their homes under the shower of bullets.
“We
got to the hospital under gunshots,” recalls one patient from
Sloviansk who fled on June 24. “A few days ago, when me and my
friend also patient from Sloviansk headed to hospital on bikes for
treatment, a gunshot plowed through the wheel. Fortunately, bullet
missed us.” Skala of the t says separatists often confiscate
methadone at the checkpoints.
He
also warns that Ukraine might be short of drugs for substitution
therapy in the next four months because part of it is financed by the
Ukrainian government, which has not been able to meet its commitment.
Kyiv
Post intern Solomiya Zinevych can be reached at [email protected]
