Rapid Assessment (RA) is aimed to collect information on situation related to HIV epidemic and illicit drug use in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to provide DFID-funded Central Asian Regional HIV/AIDS Programme strategic guidance of the Programme activities for designing effective interventions to decrease the vulnerability to HIV/AIDS on regional, national and local levels as well as to obtain qualitative and quantitative data to establish Programme baseline indicators.

The Rapid Assessment was undertaken from December 2005 to March 2006 covering Dushanbe city, GBAO, Sogd and Hatlon oblasts of Tajikistan; Chuy, Osh, Djalalabad, Issyk-kul, Talas, Batken and Naryn oblasts of Kyrgyzstan; and Ferghana, Samarkand, Surkhandarya and Tashkent oblasts of Uzbekistan. The Rapid Assessment also included eight penitentiary institutions in Kyrgyzstan and five prisons in Tajikistan. It was conducted at the level of the community, HR service providers, referral services and government authorities through documentation review, personal interviews and focus group discussions, which were guided by assessment tools developed by the CARHAP regional office.

Central Asian region faces rapid increase of drug use and HIV epidemic. Available statistics indicates that HIV prevalence in general population is still low and concentrated in specific vulnerable groups of population such as injecting drug users, sex workers and prisoners. Nevertheless, the growing pattern of the epidemic causes serious concerns about its potential generalization to general population over the next 10-20 years.

Download   Rapid Assessment Executive Summary.pdf

Download   Rapid Assessment Report.pdf