Testing hits the road in Russia, in style

Last week, AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s newest HIV mobile testing unit (MTU) hit the streets of St. Petersburg, Russia to bring free and accessible testing to residents of the city and the surrounding Leningrad Oblast (county).

The MTU, adorned in the colors of the Russian flag and a slogan calling on people to get tested, is the first of its kind in the country, and is a part of the new global 20x20 campaign. The campaign aims to get 20 million HIV positive people around the world on antiretroviral treatment by 2020, and scaling up testing is an integral part of achieving that goal.

Services like this MTU are particularly needed in Russia. UNAIDS estimates that two-thirds of the region’s people living with HIV reside here, and together with Ukraine these two countries account for 90% of newly registered cases of HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

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