Morning Briefing

Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, on Monday "urged Ukraine to step up its efforts to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic," calling "on the Ukrainian authorities to expand opiate substitution therapy, ensure HIV/AIDS treatment in prison and increase government funding of anti-AIDS programs," the Associated Press reports. "'This is the region of the world -- the only region of the world -- where the AIDS epidemic is still growing,' Kazatchkine told reporters in Kiev, adding that other countries have managed to stabilize their epidemics," the news service writes. "The United Nations says Ukraine has Europe's worst AIDS epidemic, with 1.3 percent of the population above [age] 15 infected with HIV," according to the AP (1/16).