 This harm reduction conference is very timely for us to analyze what's going on in the region because Vilnius is hosting this conference this year and Ukraine used to be an illustration for to present Terrible situation with HIV growing rate of HIV infections Problems with injecting drug users no services for a number of years Today we are here calling the press conference because situation is principally different Today Ukraine sets an example for the region because it has the largest harm reduction program in the region covering over 170,000 ID use with services key services condom syringes needles distribution STI and HIV testing counseling information material To some extent substitution therapy referral to RT treatment. So all this Program wide large-scale program that to the fact that starting from 1999 for the first time we observed Decrease in newly registered HIV infections This tendency was initially observed among injecting drug users for a number of years and in 2012 Number of new infections among drug users dropped by 9% in comparison with 2011 and this tendency impacted Epidemic among general population as I said first time since 1999 we observe decrease in newly HIV infections by 2% Situation is opposite in the Russian Federation and we present it in the briefing the Two epidemics one is going down another is going up Not because harm reduction doesn't work in Russia rather opposite in those cities where There are harm reduction programs They proved its effectiveness But the problem is that not sufficient scale of the harm reduction programs cost the growth of the epidemic. So that's why Ukrainian example will be quite Beneficial to apply in other countries of the region and share we of course have own Problems first of all its lack of national funding of harm reduction services. Unfortunately, it is zero Allocating for focus prevention We still have some Loop holes in legislation which undermines effective harm reduction. Nevertheless as for today We came here to the conference to share success to share how The biggest the largest harm reduction program in the region Can impact and impacting actually the epidemic?