Three stories of women with HIV from St. Petersburg

HIV spreading speed in Russia is higher than in Zimbabwe and Uganda. In St. Petersburg alone, more than 50 thousand infected were officially registered, and about a million of them throughout the country.

“Paper” met with HIV-positive women-a large mother on the verge of poverty, a girl from a prosperous family and activist-and found out how people with a frightening diagnosis live and fight for their rights.

How many children with HIV achieves relocation

Anastasia Starkchenko was born and raised in a large family in St. Petersburg. Her mother worked in the social sphere-she helped teenagers toxicomans. In addition to Nastya and her two brothers, she raised three more adoptive children with disabilities. There was always little money in the family, so almost immediately after school the girl began to work. She changed many professions - from a janitor and seller to a merchandiser and a nurse.

Nastya is 28 years old, but a stunted full girl with a swollen face looks much older. Now she has four children and serious problems with money and housing.

The girl learned about her diagnosis at the end of 2014, when during the second pregnancy she passed standard tests.

- As I remember now: it was Friday, they called me from the hospital and said right on the phone that I had AIDS. It is AIDS, not HIV, ”recalls Anastasia in a conversation with“ paper ”.

After this call, she decided to commit suicide. Her young man managed to pull the girl out of the loop, from whom she became infected.

Two and a half years have passed since then. Nastya found out that she did not have AIDS (the final stage of the development of infection), but HIV, gave birth to three children, parted with the man who infected her and moved.

Previously, she lived with children among the "hordes of rats" in a semi -aligned house, where there was neither heating nor toilet. Now a large family has moved to an old communal apartment in a sleeping area with a painted swearing entrance and small cluttered rooms. At the same time, the new neighbor is trying to evict Nastya from the apartment due to her diagnosis.

To move here, the girl had to go through the failures of many St. Petersburg officials, tell about her problem to the NTV journalists and write a letter to Putin. In the near future, she wants to go to the president’s reception in Moscow in order to personally achieve a full -fledged apartment in a normal house.

The girl tells about the virus much more calmly than about housing problems:

- I very carefully accept therapy and cannot convey the virus further. In general, now I am absolutely calm about my diagnosis. All my relatives are also positive about this, and [civil husband] Sergei generally says that he does not believe in all this.

The girl notes that neither her husband nor two older children have HIV. The younger daughters of Anastasia are still observed by doctors for an accurate test for the virus. From her children, when they grow up, the girl does not intend to hide her diagnosis.

Nastya emphasizes that HIV is far from her main problem. Money is more important. Now her family of six lives for 20 thousand rubles a month: benefits and decree. Sergey, whom the girl met three years ago in SMS chat, cannot find a job in St. Petersburg: he does not have a residence permit and there is a criminal record for banditry. The girl herself plans to send two younger children to the baby’s house in the near future and go to work as a janitor near the school in which her older seven -year -old daughter studies.

- If only there was work, any. Because we even have nothing to buy products. It is difficult for children that they have nothing to eat. To steal something?

In addition, the family has large debts and a loan, according to which Anastasia owed more than 100 thousand rubles.

The Nastya Helps to cope with some problems “ Family Strengthening ”. He works under the auspices of the organization "Children's villages-SOS" and is engaged in the prevention of orphanhood.

In 2016, with the support of IKEA, the Fund opened the Gamma project, which helps Petersburg families with HIV. Now about 200 children receive assistance through this project.

In the fund, members of such families provide a variety of psychological assistance, and also help get a job, interact with public services and solve urgent problems. For example, buy products. So, for the New Year, Gamma employees brought the Anastasia family to the festive table - peas and tangerines.

How experts explain the widespread widespread in Russia

In the summer of 2016, the UN called Russia an epicenter of the world epidemic of HIV. In total, about a million people with the immunodeficiency virus were registered in Russia, and even African Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, by the pace of its distribution.

In Russia, the HIV epidemics (when more than 1 % of the HIV-positive population) in the Sverdlovsk, Kemerovo, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Samara, Irkutsk and Kurgan regions, the Altai, Perm and Krasnoyarsk regions, as well as in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, were officially declared. The highest incidence rate in the country is in the city of Orenburg region: 3.5 % of the population live there with this diagnosis, that is, more than 8 thousand people.

Experts explain this situation with meager financing and insufficient attention to the recommendations of the World Health Organization. Due to the specifics of educational programs, people neglect condoms, and drug consumers do not have access to clean needles and replacement therapy. In addition, very few people are checked for HIV in Russia, and interruptions constantly occur with the supply of drugs to control infection. All this increases the risk that people with HIV will infect someone else.

In general, according to the Ministry of Health, only 37 % of constantly observed patients received the drugs necessary for a full life in 2016. This is only 28 % of the total number of patients, follows from the data of the Federal Center for AIDS. At the same time, the government refused to allocate additional funds to combat HIV due to the crisis. Without additional financing by 2020, the authorities intend to provide only 56 % of the infected therapy. Earlier it was assumed that by this time all those in need will receive therapy.

In St. Petersburg, the HIV epidemic is not declared: the number of infected here did not reach 1 % of the population. According to various sources, in the city there are from 53 to 61 thousand officially registered people with the immunodeficiency virus, most of them are men. Most often, Petersburgers are infected sexually (about 60 %). In about 35 %, they receive a virus when using drugs. At the same time, both St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region are included in the ten most affected regions of Russia.

In Russia in general, the epidemic is also not announced, but many HIV experts are sure that the total number of infected can significantly exceed the number of officially registered ones. According to estimates by “paper” of HIV activists and representatives of public organizations, the number of infected people unknown to the state who do not know or do not want to advertise their diagnosis or sides the side of HIV dissidents can be from 50 % to 200-300 % of the officially registered ones.

Vadim Pokrovsky , Head of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS:

- Some officials claim that we do not have an epidemic, but there is only an increase in incidence. In fact, the epidemic, of course, exists. She goes slowly and constantly. As a result, every five years the number of infected ones has been doubleing.

The trouble is that now in Russia in about half the cases of HIV is transmitted sexually. Moreover, if in Europe the transmission is mainly among the male homosexuals, then heterosexual couples are infected with us. Like in Africa. That is, almost everything is in the risk zone.

In Europe and the United States, they were very intensively engaged in the prevention of HIV infection. In Russia, at some point, we decided that we have a very moral society, all Orthodox, live with one partner, do not change. In such an elevated environment, the virus cannot spread. In fact, everything is wrong.

The same Germans have sexual education at school is mandatory. And if a child does not go to such lessons due to the ban on parents, then mom and dad can put him in jail so that they are ventilated there. And therefore, in Germany, a maximum of 3 thousand new cases of HIV are recorded in a year, and we have 100 thousand.

The director of the AIDS Foundation, and the director of the AIDS Foundation, is holding a similar opinion. Center »Journalist Anton Krasovsky. According to him, the HIV epidemic in St. Petersburg took on a large -scale character three years ago.

-Petersburg in some amazing way, together with the Leningrad region, is the center of north-western drug use. Because Petersburg is depressed, with a high percentage of unemployment, it has a large number of young people who came from the whole country. They are looking for themselves and can afford to look for themselves for a long time, unlike, for example, from Moscow, so there are such monstrous numbers in St. Petersburg, ”Krasovsky said.

How are relations in families where HIV-positive live

- The average age of our patients is 35–36 years. They are socially active, reproductive. We have a ratio of transmission routes. HIV does not spread among drug consumers and women who have commercial sex services. The entire population is at risk, ” said Tatyana Vinogradova, deputy chief doctor of the St. Petersburg Center for Research and Organizationing.

In the Family Field Foundation, “Paper” confirmed that in St. Petersburg, HIV is really more and more often diagnosed with relatively prosperous people. They need help rather psychological, not material, added to the fund.

-This is help in accepting the status of HIV-positive, working with family relationships. A person collapses the whole world when he finds out the diagnosis, ”said Anna Kuznetsova, representative of the fund.

At the same time, the medical director of the AIDS Foundation. The center ”Elena Orlova-Morozova explained“ Paper ”that about 30-50 % of people with HIV live in discordant pairs, where only one partner is infected.

- If infection becomes known before the start of life together, then very often the couple breaks up. If people have lived together for many years, then, as a rule, HIV infection does not affect the relationship, ”she explained.

However, there are reverse examples. So, in the Feature Foot Foundation, they worked with a woman who received HIV as a result of rape. Her husband, having learned about what had happened, filed for divorce.

The fund notes that reverse, prosperous, more examples. In a similar family, 34-year-old Natalya lives (the girl asked not to reveal her last name) from St. Petersburg. She learned about her diagnosis in 2003 after analyzes in a antenatal clinic.

- I received from my first man who did not know about the disease. He took it hard. His whole family apologized. There was a tragedy, but it did not last long, because I had a very good family that supported me. I immediately realized that there is no great tragedy and danger to my life and the life of others. And you can continue to live completely calmly, ”she told the“ paper ”.

Natalya has not noticed any manifestations of infection for the past five years. Three years ago, she gave birth to a daughter. Both the child and the husband of Natalia did not receive.

- I absolutely knew for sure that, taking a breakpapia, I could not infect them.

Indeed, according to the St. Petersburg AIDS Center, in six months of 2016, 293 children were born in infected mothers in the city, while only nine received HIV.

In a conversation with “paper”, Natalya emphasized that she lives a full -fledged life. She calls herself a “housewife with an active civil position” and in the near future plans to move from St. Petersburg to the village to the lake and open her own center for supporting people with chronic diseases.

- I am the same person as everyone else. The topic of HIV and I do not even especially discuss my husband, ”she adds.

At the same time, a woman tells about her diagnosis only to relatives, and the status does not particularly advertise. According to the Criminal Code, in Russia only the intentional infection of another person is punishable (or an attempt to infect). If desired, in most cases, a Russian may not report his diagnosis even to a doctor. But in St. Petersburg there are people with absolutely open status.

How an activist fights with discrimination of infected HIV

Maria Yakovleva began to use drugs at 16 and two years later received an immunodeficiency virus.

- My former young man called me and said that he was diagnosed. Said me to go to check. Well, I went to check, did not believe it to the end. Then, when they made a diagnosis, I had such a plan for almost ten years: now I will begin to die from AIDS and put my hands on myself, ”the girl told “ paper ” .

Now 34-year-old Maria is least like a person who is capable of suicide. She has not used drugs for seven years, has been working as a designer, openly declares her positive status and one raises a three -year -old child. She also heads the public organization "Candle", which helps HIV-infected. During a story about her illness, Masha often jokes and laughs, emphasizing that he does not notice any manifestations of infection.

- When I found out the diagnosis, it became for me a filter of people. If this is my person, close, dear, then he will normally react to the diagnosis. Of course, I did not go with a poster, but told my friends. Of these, no one completely eliminated at all. The men with whom I met - it happened that they ran away. But this was only a couple of people over these 15 years, ”she explains.

At the same time, Maria admits that other infected people often collide in St. Petersburg with discrimination. The “candle” is contacted by people to whom doctors refuse medical care, and employers, having learned about the diagnosis, are dismissed or illegally demand a medical certificate.

“They may refuse to receive children in a kindergarten or school, refuse to carry out scheduled surgical manipulations, not hire,” adds Elena Orlova-Morozova from AIDS. Center ".

At the same time, Maria is confident that most HIV problems in Russia are caused by the state of state on traditional values ​​and the silence of the topic of sexual relations.

-Due to the lack of information, people still live in the 90s and think that HIV is equal to AIDS and equal to death. Many tell me that if they learned about their own, they would have shot themselves. Then I say: I needed to shoot myself 15 years ago? Or shoot yourself tomorrow? They do not understand that at the moment medicine has reached great progress and there is an opportunity, taking therapy, to control the disease. HIV infection grew into the category of chronic diseases. The main problem is that people think that it will not affect them. You just need to understand that we have very few and many do not know about their status. When you go to the subway at an hour-rush, together with you in the car, one person goes in the car, who knows that he has HIV, and two or three who do not know, she believes.

The activist herself is trying to correct this situation and over the past six years have held many promotions designed to tell about HIV. Among them are rock concerts to help HIV-positive children, educational projects in support of pregnant women with HIV and even protest promotions at Putin's reception during interruptions in medicines. After the latter, Maria ended up in the police department.

- In St. Petersburg and now there are interruptions. They didn’t give me medicine. Well, they were not given in December, and now I was at the manager, and she told me that there would be medicines, but later. I hope that the whole story with import substitution of drugs will help reduce prices, and this will cover more people.

In St. Petersburg, as in other large cities, only officially prescribed drugs in the city can get medications.

Maria is sure that discrimination and attitude in society to infected depends largely on how the latter behave.

- In general, from all this story, I concluded that both I relate to myself and others treat me. You need to position yourself so that I have rights, explain to people, then everything will be fine. It all starts with me. No need to blame the whole world, you need to do it better.