HIV/AIDS Awareness Class, School No. 43, Erebuni, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / UNICEF 2005

To mark World AIDS Day, Unzipped: Gay Armenia posts a comprehensive post of statistics and commentary on the situation in Armenia. Although the figures look quite low on first glance, the real number of HIV-positive people is believed to be 10 times higher.

From 1988 to 1 December 2007, 528 HIV cases had been registered in the Republic of Armenia among its citizens. 66 new cases of HIV infection were registered in 2006; and 99 - in 2007. Males constitute a majority in the total number of HIV cases - 396 cases (75.0%), females make up 132 cases (25.0%). 528 reported cases include 11 cases of HIV infection among children (2.1%).

AIDS diagnosis was made to 206 patients with HIV, of whom 40 are women and 6 are children. From the beginning of the epidemic, 119 death cases have been registered among HIV/AIDS patients (the cases include 19 women and 3 children).

[…]

The overwhelming majority of the HIV-positive individuals (72.3%) belong to the age group of 20-39.

[…]

The main modes of HIV transmission are through injecting drug use (47.9%) and heterosexual practices (45.1%). Besides, there are also registered cases of mother-to-child HIV transmission as well as through blood transfusions and homosexual practices

Incidentally, two articles on HIV/AIDS that I wrote for UNICEF are here and here.

Kvakk!, the blog of a young journalist from Norway currently working in Armenia for the Norwegian Red Cross has some interesting posts about raising awareness of STD/HIV prevention. In the first, she says that free condoms were recently given away to young people in the northern Armenian town of Ijevan.

We put more than 100 condoms on the table when we had a mini seminar at the Youth Centre in town, and they were all gone after the meeting.

Having an open meeting is not often happening in Ijevan, especially not for young people. We had put posters in the University and the few colleges in town, and also invited several students personally, but when the meeting was supposed to start at 15 o’clock, very few had showed up. Being on time is another challenge in Armenia… But instead of waiting and just hoping that more people would show up, we decided to try to recruit people from the classrooms and street.

[…]

The RC volunteers and I had divided the responsibilities beforehand; Hermine said welcome, David talked about hiv/aids and STIs, Gorgen had the transmission game and the quiz, Lusine had the Agree-Disagree game (discussions about sex before marriage, hiv, condoms, prostitution and stigma).

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HIV/AIDS Awareness Class, School No. 43, Erebuni, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / UNICEF 2005

Over at Armyouth, Pradafreak posts about a recent action aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of HIV/AIDS among youth in Armenia. The action was held on 12 December 2006 in cooperation with the APEC NGO who I wrote about for UNICEF in 2005. However, despite recent attempts to raise awareness, the action revealed that most young Armenians are uninformed about HIV/AIDs and especially with regards to how to prevent infection.

A lot of students from the faculty of sociology volunteered for the project, so we could manage it. Special mini - test forms were designed, and our volunteers asked those questions to the students. At the end of the questions the right answers were given to them, so they can read them after being intrigued from the questions.

So here are the results: Out of 916 surveys - Only 5% was fully informed about the case, 14% is enough informed about the issue, 73 % has a very little and wrong knowledge , 8% doesn’t have any idea about this big issue.

So as the results showed our students are not informed about the case, and I should admit they were not that interested in the presentation, some of them even thinks that its not a problem for the Armenian society, some girls found it offensive to answer to the questions about HIV / AIDs and STDs etc.

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After being called back unexpectedly to Boston after his father suffered a heart attack, Garo has posted some welcome news on his blog, Notes From Hairenik. Considering how serious his father’s condition sounded when I met up with Garo before he left Yerevan, I’m really happy to read his latest post.

Over three weeks have passed since my father’s cardiac arrest, and Khosroff has made remarkable progress. Actually his recovery has been miraculous. I had mentioned in my previous post about him that he was not expected to survive due to a significant lack of oxygen to the brain; however only five days after he fell into a coma he responded to my mother’s command to squeeze her hand, nearly at the same time my wife and I were preparing to fly from Yerevan. By the time we arrived in Boston on the evening of January 21, his eyes were opened and he seemed to recognize family members, specifically my mother, his brother, Ariga and myself, although he could not talk since a breathing tube had been inserted into his throat days before.

The following day he began to speak and on Wednesday of that same week he caressed my face while citing an example from the Van-Vaspourakan era of Armenian history that should be learned.

[…]

Although he still has a long way to go while his brain essentially regenerates, he has come a long way thus far, baffling doctors who treated him at the hospital where he was first admitted. For a person who was initially thought to have having 70 percent brain damage, he’s already made leaping strides towards a projected 90 percent recovery (as diagnosed by the very same doctors) in six months time. It’s fabulous news and very surprising, as we were all expecting the worst. But this incident proves how strong willed Khosroff is and how he can seemingly overcome any challenge that faces him—whether physical or mental. There is no mistaking that he is my hero.

Garo, your Dad is a dude and a real trooper. Please pass on my regards to him and your Ma. The full post is here.

Zarchka has an interesting post on love, sex and marriage over at Life Around Me. So interesting was it that the forum page which resulted in Zara posting has since been taken down. So much for open discussion, but one thing’s for sure, her post had an impact and if discussion was censored and actually stopped on a site established to promote free debate, it’s continuing on her blog.

Comments have been disabled for this post, so if you want to say something on it, please do so over there.

PanArmenian.net reports that the First Lady of the Republic of Georgia, Sandra Roelofs, is currently paying an official visit to Armenia. Roelofs will be paying particular attention to medical, social and cultural issues in the South Caucasus, and possibly tuberculosis if this report is anything to go by.

Also a meeting between Armenian First Lady Bella Kocharian and Sandra Roelofs is planned. Sandra Elizabeth Rulovs is WHO Ambassador to the Eastern Europe on the fight against tuberculosis. The wife of Georgian president also will visit Armenian great composer Aram Khachaturian’s museum and will meet there with professors and students of Yerevan State Conservatoire. In the Georgian Embassy a reception will be held in Sandra Elizabeth Roelofs’s honor, ‘Novosti Gruzia’ reports

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After literally just returning from the U.S. at the weekend, Garo (a.k.a. Christian Garbis) at Notes from Hairenik has some bad news about his father. Despite initially recovering from open heart surgery, Khosroff suffered another heart attack in his sleep although he is thankfully in a stable condition albeit not responding to verbal communication.

It is impossible to know at this point why this massive heart attack overtook his supposed good health since he was recovering quite nicely. I accompanied him on his visits to two doctors–a cardiologist and a neurologist (he suffered from a stroke post surgery but fully recovered in only a few days) and both passed him with flying colors. My father was a heavy smoker and a hearty eater. Combined with high blood pressure and controllable diabetes, his life style was eventually going to cause complications for his long-term well being. But despite an excellent recovery from the surgical procedures, it seems at this point he may not make it, although his friends and family have to be fairly optimistic.

I will return to Boston in a few days to tend to matters regarding my father’s worsened health and our family business. […].

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Artur, New Year’s Day, Specialized Children’s Home, Kharberd, Ararat Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2002

Via Tirami Su, Mikael Kazaryan of mkdotam and photoblog.am has a post about festivities recently held at the Specialized Children’s Home in Nor Kharberd on the outskirts of Yerevan. The post is in Russian, perhaps the lingua franca for local bloggers and forum participants in Armenia, but it’s probably about time to have some cyrillic on my site even if I have to feed it into an online translation service to understand.

о Харбердском детдомe // отчет

Дорогие друзья, в это воскресение, как и было сказано, кукольный театр поехал в Харбердский дет.дом, в котором проживают дети с умственными отклонениями. Сразу же должен сказать, что дет.дом оставил на меня очень светлое впечатление. В помещениях было светло, тепло и уютно. Детишки были нормально одеты, умыты и вообще чувствовалось, что за ними ухаживают, о них заботятся и любят. Кукольный театр отыграл “Три поросенка”, после представления Дед Мороз и Снегурочка пообщались с детьми: дети почитали стихи, попели песни, потанцевали, потом Дед Мороз загадывал загадки, а Снегурочка подсказывала отгадки, потому что вопросы были не по зубам даже взрослым. Не знаю какие грибы ел Дед Мороз когда придумывал эти загадки. В конце Дед Мороз и Снегурочка раздали ребяткам по пакетику “Снеговик” из Гранд Кенди и укатили в свой кукАльный театр. После чего мы (я, Андрон, Лекс, и Нелли (журн.из Аравота с которой все и началось)) пообщались с Ирой, которая уже 6 лет работает в Харбердском дет.доме и сейчас является старшей воспитательницей. В результате общения было в частности узнано, что в Харбердском дет.доме находится около 250 детей. На представлении было около 100 это обусловленно тем, что часть детей является лежачими больными и часть детей находится в таком состоянии, что они бы ни поняли ничего из происходящего (как эти множества пересекаются я не знаю). Было отмечено также, что подобные представления и прочие довольно частое явление, особенно под Новый Год и 1 июня (день защиты детей). Какой-то факультет филармонии каждый год приезжает туда с представлениями. Часто детей вывозят в город на представления в разные театры. Так же есть какие-то спонсоры, которые оплачивают вывоз детей на Севан летом. За это лето 70 детей отдохнули на Севане.

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Well, I spoke too soon about my attempt to quite smoking. Basically, even with Tabex I could murder a cigarette now. Haven’t had not even one for two days now, but boy does the inside of my mouth crave nicotine injested through smoke. I can only wonder how long this feeling is going to last.

Like I said, even though I am on a course of Tabex this now feels like Cold Turkey, although technically it isn’t. Then again, maybe it would be even worse without this supplement, I really don’t know.

“Cold turkey” is a slang expression describing the actions of a person who gives up a habit or addiction all at once, rather than gradually (easing the process through tapering off or using supplemental medication).

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The term allegedly derives from the comparison of a cold turkey carcass and the state of a withdrawing addict — most notably, the cold sweats and goose bumps. It is often preceded by the verb “to go,” as in “going cold turkey.”

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Although many people disagree, it has been said that nicotine cessation can be the most difficult form of cold turkey, more difficult than even heroin or cocaine. [1]

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For those of you that know me, this is no joke. I really am trying to give up smoking. No need to explain why I guess, and not least since apart from Princess Margaret, there are few who smoked as much as I do. Basically, when even Armenians tell you that you smoke too much it really is time to stop. Of course, I’ve tried a few times before and failed, but this time I’m taking something to help me — Tabex.

Tabex is an original Bulgarian preparation of plant origin, intended for the treatment of tobacco smoking. The preparation is developed on the basis of the alkaloid Cytisine, contained in the plant Cytisus laborinum L. (Golden Rain acacia).

In the human body, Cytisine plays the role of nicotine substitution substance, and reduces the period of interaction of the received nicotine with relevant nicotine receptors, i.e. the specific substance cytisine “substitutes” nicotine, acting on the same receptors, thus preventing the appearance of abstinence syndrome. This results in a gradual reduction and suspension of the psychic and physical dependency to nicotine in smokers.

The broad clinical studies carried out, show that the therapy with the preparation Tabex results in giving up smoking in more than 57% of the patients.

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