Central Asian countries launch AIDS project with help from UN, World Bank

Four Central Asian countries which have suffered a dramatic increase in HIV infection rates in recent years today launched a nearly $27 million project to lessen the human and economic impact of the pandemic, the World Bank said.

Officially reported cases in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the members of the Central Asia Cooperation Organization (CACO), jumped from about 500 in 2000 to over 12,000 last year, it said.

At a project launch workshop, whose organizers included the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Bank, representatives of the four countries signed agreements for a $25 million grant from the Bank's International Development Association (IDA) and a 1 million pound sterling grant from the Department for International Development (DfID) in the United Kingdom.

The project has three components: regional coordination, policy development and capacity strengthening; the Central Asia AIDS Fund to contain the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs); and project management, monitoring and evaluation, the Bank said.