Poland: Ukrainian refugees struggle with stigma and treatment gaps
On top of housing, work and schooling, Ukrainian refugees with HIV face an additional, urgent difficulty: how to access the antiretroviral medicines they need to suppress the virus. In Poland, they face a particular stigma, causing many HIV positive refugees to conceal their health status.
When Anna Aryabinska fled from Kyiv in March 2022 with her ex-partner’s children, she had little idea that she would end up supporting not only his family, but many HIV-positive Ukrainians in Poland. Until Russia’s full-scale invasion, Aryabinska had been an activist for the Ukrainian organisation Positive Women, supporting women with HIV. Now she is one of a group of volunteers assisting fellow Ukrainian refugees to keep taking medication for HIV, as well as integrate into healthcare systems in European countries which have very different epidemic profiles and standards of treatment.
Ukraine has the second-largest HIV epidemic in Europe after Russia, with an estimated 260,000 people living with the disease. Over six million Ukrainians are now refugees from Russia’s full-scale invasion, according to the UNHCR. In Poland, the top destination, 1.6 million Ukrainians have applied for temporary protection schemes (the vast majority are women and children as martial law bans most men aged 18 to 60 – like Aryabinska’s ex-partner – from leaving Ukraine). On top of issues around housing, work and schooling, people with HIV face an additional, urgent difficulty: how to access the antiretroviral (ARV) medicines they need to take every day to suppress the virus.
Difficult adjustment
Anna Aryabinska left Kyiv in March 2022, when Russian forces were just a few kilometres from the city. Better prepared than many, she took a three-month supply of ARVs and a medical note from Kyiv doctors with her. When she reached Poland she registered right away at the local AIDS centre. Since then, she has been guiding others through a similar process as part of an online service, HelpNow, supported by the Ukrainian NGO Alliance for Public Health.
‘People are in such a panic,’ she says. ‘And they have no one else to ask.’ HelpNow has set up hubs in Poland, Germany and the Baltic states, and has helped Ukrainian refugees in 47 countries with online support, as well as in-person assistance in major refugee hubs like Warsaw. HelpNow volunteers teamed up with local NGOs to help refugees baffled by practical issues like finding translators for medical records or doctor’s appointments, receiving necessary documentation, or simply reaching the nearest AIDS clinic – there are only 16 in Poland, compared to 300 in Ukraine.
