The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), jointly with the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republican AIDS Center, and community partners, is hosting a number of events to mark World AIDS Day. These events bring a public focus to the right to health.

The right to health is universal to everyone, including people living with and affected by HIV. It is a right to prevention, care, and treatment services; to make decisions about one’s own health; and to be treated with respect and dignity without discrimination. USAID joins the global 2017 World AIDS Day campaign #MyRightToHealth by supporting a message on the importance of a rights based approach to ending HIV and AIDS.

The Republican AIDS Center estimates that about 8,800 people in the Kyrgyz Republic live with HIV and that only 3,075 currently receive antiretroviral treatment.

During the week leading up to December 02, 2017, the USAID HIV Flagship Activity launched a series of events in Chui oblast (Moskovkiy and Panfilovskiy rayons) and Osh city with community-based organizations working with key populations under the global campaign “My Health, My Right.” The events involved people living with HIV and those affected by HIV, where participants shared and explored the challenges they face in exercising their right to health.

A concluding event– a run with over 150 people from various sectors of governmental, communities, healthcare, academia, civil society activists, and international partners will take place on December 02, 2017 in the Botanical Garden in Bishkek city. The event will raise awareness on HIV prevention, care, and treatment services, and provide participants an opportunity to express their views on the right to health and exercise. Confidential HIV counseling and testing services will be available on site of the event.

The U.S. Government, through the USAID HIV Flagship Project, works with a number of community-based organizations to identify HIV cases and help people living with HIV to stay on lifelong treatment. The project follows the ambitious UNAIDS 90-90-90 strategy, which aims by 2020 to ensure that 90% of people with HIV are diagnosed, 90% of those diagnosed are on anti-retroviral therapy, and 90% of those on treatment have very low levels of the virus in their blood so they stay healthy and don’t transmit the disease.