Ukraine's national program for fighting AIDS is lacking funds, Deputy Health Minister Valeriy Bydniy said on Wednesday.
The program to contain the spread of the disease and cater for the HIV-positive sufferers through 2013 was adopted in February 2009. However, in 2010 it received 60% of the allocated funds, Bydniy told an HIV/AIDS conference in Kiev.
While the proposed figure was $45 million, the program has received a mere $27 million, he said.
He promised the program would receive 100% of the allocated funds next year.
According to official statistics, 108,434 people have been registered as HIV-positive in the former Soviet state of as November 1, and 2,497 people have died of AIDS in the first ten months of the year.
UNAIDS Country Coordinator for Ukraine, Ani Shakarishvili, said the program's funding deficit through 2016 amounted to $1.2 million.
She expressed concern that services to prevent and remedy HIV/AIDS in Ukraine are extremely expensive.
In neighboring Russia, the HIV epidemic has been steadily growing since the mid-2000s. Last year alone, 58,448 new cases of the disease were registered, up 8% from 2008.
KIEV, November 17 (RIA Novosti)
