Health
Health action with informed and engaged societies
Health
As of March 15 2025, The Communication Initiative (The CI) platform is operating at a reduced level, with no new content being posted to the global website and registration/login functions disabled. (La Iniciativa de Comunicación, or CILA, will keep running.) While many interactive functions are no longer available, The CI platform remains open for public use, with all content accessible and searchable until the end of 2025. 

Please note that some links within our knowledge summaries may be broken due to changes in external websites. The denial of access to the USAID website has, for instance, left many links broken. We can only hope that these valuable resources will be made available again soon. In the meantime, our summaries may help you by gleaning key insights from those resources. 

A heartfelt thank you to our network for your support and the invaluable work you do.
Time to read
less than
1 minute
Print
a- a+
Published 24 years ago
Last updated 1 year ago
Read so far

Harm Reduction and HIV - Belarus

0 comments

This harm reduction programme, implemented in 1996 in Svetlogorsk was created to prevent HIV transmission effectively amongst injection drug users in Belarus. By providing sterile injecting equipment in combination with outreach and harm reduction activities, visible success was noted.
Communication Strategies

By creating a supportive environment within a needle exchange, punitive action changed into support and partnership. This program became the basis for best practice guidelines distributed throughout Belarus.
Development Issues

HIV/AIDS, education, injection drug users, youth, education
Key Points

Svetlogorsk was chosen as the site for the intervention as it was considered to be one of the most affected cities in the country. Both injection drug users and city administration officials agreed that young new drug users were reduced significantly during the period of the project, and that the social tension in the city was felt to be reduced.
Partners



MAP (Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic), IMPACT (Implementing AIDS Prevention and Care Project), Family Health Agency, USAID (United States Agency for International Development), The François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights of the Harvard School of Public Health, UNAIDS (United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS), WHO, European Union

Sources

The Determinants of the HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Eastern Europe: Final Report, Veyrier du Lac, France, June 1998 (English)