HIV/AIDS
The state started fighting against HIV and AIDS in the beginning of the 1990s. The first national programme in the fight against HIV was the National AIDS Prevention Programme (1992-1997), which was followed by the National Programme on the Prevention of HIV/AIDS and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases (1997-2001). On 16 January 2002 the government approved the National HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme for 2002-2006, and the prevention activities arising from the programme were carried out in the period from 2002-2005. However, as the epidemic changed, the state needed a new strategy and the Ministry of Social Affairs worked on the development of the new national HIV/AIDS strategy from autumn 2004 to summer 2005. The government approved the National HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategy for 2006-2015 and its action plan for 2006-2009 on 1 December 2005.
The overall goal of the strategy is to achieve a constant decrease in the spread of the HIV infection. The goal for 2015 is to see the number of new cases of HIV infection decrease to 20 per 100,000 people (the respective indicator in 2004 was 55) and to prevent the generalisation of the epidemic with the activities set out in the strategy (i.e. the share of HIV positive pregnant women among all pregnant women must remain below 1%. In 2004, it was 0.5%).
The HIV/AIDS Strategy for 2006-2015 discusses the following areas of activity in stopping the spread of the HIV epidemic and alleviating the impact of the epidemic on the Estonian society: prevention among various target groups, HIV testing and counselling; prevention, treatment and welfare aimed at people with HIV and AIDS; surveillance, monitoring and evaluation, and development of human and organisational resources.
The managing authority of the strategy, the HIV/AIDS Committee of the Government of the Republic, was also approved with the approval of the new national strategy. The Committee is very broad-based and represents the positions of government organisations, HIV experts and HIV-positive people. The strategy creates a broader scope and sets forth the principles that prevention should proceed from, but the 4-year action plan of the strategy comes with more specific one-year action plans (every ministry has its own action plan), which are prepared on the basis of the epidemic’s course and the success indicators of prevention.
