 Children at MSF's psychiatric day center in Gavar. Photo © Tim Dirven |
Treating mental illness and HIV/AIDS
In Armenia, MSF is treating people with sexually transmitted infections,
including HIV/AIDS — all growing problems. Medical teams are
also working to increase access to care for refugees now in the country
and improve the quality of mental health care.
In the Shirak region of northwestern
Armenia, an MSF team is working to reduce
the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually
transmitted infections. Since the beginning
of the project in March 2005, more than
300 patients have been treated by MSF
staff in a clinic in the town of Giumri. MSF
has also provided the town's blood transfusion
center with diagnostic and laboratory
material. The team also offers counseling,
a confidential telephone line and individual
and group education sessions. MSF
trains local health staff on topics related to
the clinic's work and provides monthly
deliveries of drugs and laboratory and
medical equipment. MSF has also opened
primary health centers in poor, rural areas
which offer free care.
In northeastern Armenia's Vanadzor city
and its surroundings, MSF runs another
HIV-prevention project. Safe sex practices
are promoted among the general population
and among at-risk groups such as
commercial sex workers, truck drivers and
adolescents. MSF is implementing the
project with a national partner.
MSF provides outpatient psychiatric, psychological
and social support to people
with mental illness in eastern Armenia's
Gegharkunik province. The priority is to
improve the way mentally ill outpatients
are cared for, reduce their hospitalization
rate and minimize their social isolation.
In 2004 MSF began working in the regions
of Vardenis and Tshambarak, home to many
Azerbaijani refugees who fled their country
after the 1991-1994 war. MSF helps this
population, which has little or no access to
health care, by renovating existing health
structures and providing equipment, material
and medicines.
In the second half of 2005, MSF plans to
open a project in the Malatia-Sebastia and
Shengavit districts of Yerevan, the capital,
to better detect, diagnose and treat people
living with both non-resistant TB and harder-
to-treat, drug-resistant strains of the
disease.
MSF has worked in Armenia since 1988.
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