Health and Human Services and USAID Support Children with HIV/AIDS

July 3, 2004 - St. Petersburg

	With Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson in the background, Dr. Peterson meets with children at a Pediatric AIDS hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia. That morning, USAID announced a new grant to the Assistance to Russian Orphans (ARO) program to work with this hospital to establish a comprehensive care and foster care model for abandoned HIV positive children. All the children in the hospital are abandoned and are HIV positive. Source: USAID
	The Assistance to Russian Orphans program works with disabled children (encompassing the physically, psychologically, and developmentally disabled), and "healthy" children who enjoy arts and crafts activities while living together at the camp. A French performance art troupe specializing in art therapy and behavior therapy organizes many of the activities. Here at the morning "exercise" program that involves the whole group, a young girl performs a stretching exercise with Dr. Peterson. Source: USAID

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson with USAID Assistant Administrator for Global Health Dr. E. Anne Peterson announced a $100,000 grant for a new HIV/AIDS program in Russia. The award will benefit the Russian Federal Center for Treatment and Prophylaxis of HIV Infection in Pregnant Women and Children located in St. Petersburg. With financing from this grant, the program partners will create a comprehensive care program for HIV positive infants and children. The program is another important step in U.S.-Russian cooperative efforts against HIV/AIDS.

Children born to HIV-infected mothers are often abandoned. To reverse this trend, the U.S. sponsored Assistance to Russian Orphans (ARO) program will bring 5 years of experience working with children at risk of abandonment to the project. ARO, implemented by the International Research and Exchanges Board, will work with the Center to develop counseling and support for families as well as foster care and adoption initiatives. Teams of psychologists, educators, and social workers will collaborate with medical professionals to ensure that HIV-infected children have a fair chance to develop on par with healthy children.

The St. Petersburg Federal Center is the leading Russian institution providing quality treatment and care for Russia's growing population of HIV-positive children. Through this new program, the Center will become an important training facility for doctors, social workers, and educators throughout the Russian Federation.

Dr. Eugene Voronin, Chief Pediatrician of the Center said, "We are delighted to work with the ARO program. Their many years of experience and expertise in preventing child abandonment in Russia will help us not only care for these children medically - it will help us help families - so that HIV-positive children grow up in loving homes."

Russia is facing an HIV/AIDS epidemic. The virus infection rate is moving from high-risk groups (drug users and commercial sex workers) into the general population. From 2001 to 2002, the number of children born to HIV-infected mothers grew by 143 percent.