About five percent of Ukraine’s 42 million population, or 2.1 million people, live with hepatitis C, as estimated by the international charitable foundation Alliance for Public Health.
The actual number is unknown, however, as many do not undergo a medical checkup.
To raise awareness about the disease, the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, together with Ukrainian photographer Alexander Glyadyelov, 61, has launched a photo exhibition in Izone gallery in Kyiv that will last until July 31. The World Hepatitis Day is July 28.
The exhibit, called “Out of Darkness,” features 60 black-and-white pictures and stories about the challenges that people face living with hepatitis C in Ukraine.
“The main task of this exhibition is to inform people about the problem and understand that it is curable,” Glyadyelov told the Kyiv Post.
For the exhibition, Glyadyelov photographed 10 hepatitis C-positive people from Mykolaiv, a city 480 kilometers south from Kyiv. The city was chosen as it has a high rate of HIV-positive people, which raises the risk of getting hepatitis C.
“When we launched the project in Mykolaiv Oblast, sick people and their relatives started coming to us, asking about the opportunities and ways of treatment,” Glyadyelov says.
The photographer believes that such projects might help “thousands of people to be eventually treated.”
According to Yuna Cho, 31, the field communication manager of Doctors Without Borders, the exhibition is not about the disease itself, but “as you can see from the photos — it is about people.”
The organization wanted to portray people who are trying not only to overcome the disease, but also to regain their lives.
“These people are really trying hard to get treated, to survive, and also to recover,” says Cho. “Most of them got this disease 10 years ago, and for these 10 years they had to deal with it. Some of them even lost their jobs, but now they are trying to restart their lives.”
The exhibition also explores the problem of stigmatization that people living with hepatitis C often face.
“People are afraid that their family might turn away from them, that they may not be able to have support from their relatives and friends because of their sickness,” Cho says.
Glyadyelov stresses the importance of the nation’s awareness on the matter and says that he is “glad to find people who are not afraid to talk about their disease.”
Glyadyelov has been working with Doctors Without Borders since 1997, and has photographed for them in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Armenia, Somali, Sudan, Kenia and Ukraine.
Doctors Without Borders started helping people with hepatitis C in Mykolaiv in 2017, with 150 people currently undergoing treatment within their program there, Cho says.
‘Out of Darkness’ (photo exhibition). Izone (8 Naberezhno-Luhova St.) July 24–31. 10 a. m. — 8 p. m. Free
