Kazakhstan: Greater HIV Awareness Amongst Youth Needed

This article describes a series of interviews held by a staff person of the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), with a number of public health
officials in Kazakhstan regarding HIV/AIDS awareness and youth. In the article, school teachers are described as broaching the subject of HIV/AIDS but information is not impacting the majority of youth in their day-to-day lives because HIV/AIDS continues to be considered a taboo subject matter.

According to Kazbek Tulebaev, Deputy Director General of the Kazakh National Centre for Problems of Healthy Lifestyle Development, "Forty-four percent of young people have sexual relations before marriage, with 17 percent of them having more than 10 sexual partners during a one year period..." The article describes that in Kazahstan adolescents are taught by their parents not to have sex and the subject remains closed. As Tulebaev states "We need to change the behaviour of young people. We need a systematic approach in doing that..."

The article offers the official, registered count of individuals with HIV/AIDS in Kazakhstan as 4,600 of which the majority are intravenous drug users. The article makes reference to experts who believe that the true number may be closer to 20,000. Venera Baisugurova, Department Chief for Preventive Programmes at the Kazakh National Centre for Problems of Healthy Lifestyle Development, is described as tellling IRIN that the level of awareness varies in different parts of the country. She states that "between 50 and 80 percent of young people aged 11 to 18 have a strong knowledge of HIV but continue to take risks in their sexual behaviour."

One concern voiced in the article by Tulebaev is the lack of advice and information available to raise awareness amongst the country's youth. While the Kazakh Ministry of Health supports the establishment of a peer counselling unit organised by young people, no funding has been allocated for such a service. Tulebaev further points out that no specific office for peer counselling exists nor is there a separate organisation that works strictly with young people. He believes that while existing medical health care offices might deal with this issue, "young people are reluctant to go."