Implementation of the HIV/AIDS Program in Ukraine. The Need for Urgent Decisive Action During the War (Review)
Authors: Stepanenko V.I. , Fedorenko O.E. , Ivanov S.V. , Svyryd S.H. , Stepanenko R.L. , Koladenko K.V. , Konovalova T.S. 
Published: February 2025

According to official estimates, 245 thousand people with HIV-positive status lived in Ukraine at the beginning of 2022. For some of them, the provision of further treatment was threatened by the full-scale Russian aggression, which created critical challenges in the effective response to HIV/AIDS. The provision of the entire range of prevention and treatment services has become much more complicated. This was most felt by patients in the southern and eastern regions of the country. The negative consequences, as well as the full restoration of services to the population in the context of the HIV epidemic, have become uneven due to the significant activity of hostilities, the consequences of the destruction of medical infrastructure, forced mass migration of the population, and imperfect monitoring of internally displaced persons with HIV-positive status. The HIV epidemic in Ukraine is and will remain a significant problem on a national scale for a long time, which significantly complicates the positive forecasting of its further development and the desired strategies for overcoming it.
Objective — to evaluate and substantiate integrated ways of implementing monitoring, modern diagnostics and principles of HIV treatment and prevention as the basis of the strategy for overcoming the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine with international humanitarian aid.
Materials and methods. Numerous documents of international policy in the field of health care and public health are analyzed; recent changes in the documents of the state policy in the field of health care of Ukraine; international strategies and approaches to overcoming the HIV epidemic; dynamics of the incidence of skin and venereal diseases in Ukraine; forecasting the monitoring of probable national and global HIV epidemics in the coming years.
Results and discussion. Based on the study of recent statistical and professional scientific information, the key areas of further strengthening of the monitoring-control system and real assessment of the state of the HIV epidemic in Ukraine, as well as the desired optimization of preventive measures and specific treatment in the conditions of full-scale martial law in Ukraine, are analyzed.
Conclusions. The forced mass displacement of Ukrainians partly contributed to a better understanding of the urgent need to increase HIV diagnosis in the EU/EEA countries in 2022—2024, emphasizing the importance of timely prevention, rapid testing and care for already identified HIV carriers. If not the complete overcoming of HIV infection as a real threat to public health, it is one of the pressing tasks of the Ukrainian health care system for quite a long time. Ukraine is now one of the countries where the incidence of HIV infection continues to grow continues to increase and the mortality rate due to AIDS continues to increase. This necessitates urgent revision by specialists of a number of regulatory and me­thodological state documents based on the principles of evidence-based medicine and WHO ­recommendations, their maximum adaptation to the current emergency situation, the development of new effective surgical approaches and clinical routes that will guarantee the timely receipt of full-fledged comprehensive professional medical services and ART by HIV-positive patients, pregnant women and children born to HIV-positive women. Aligning national standards in strict compliance with the best international practices in the field of combating HIV infection will contribute to a significant increase in the effectiveness of such a fight and will serve as a solid foundation for future efforts to overcome the HIV epidemic in Ukraine and a noticeable prolongation of the life of HIV-infected citizens of our country.