Iryna Borushek recently passed away in Kyiv, Ukraine, after a long illness. With her passing, the international AIDS community has lost one of the strongest and most dedicated activists and leaders.

One of the highlights of my career in the AIDS response and my work with UNAIDS has been the honour to know and work with Ms Borushek.

For the past 20 years, she was one of the most articulate and passionate civil society activists, advancing the national AIDS response in Ukraine and inspiring AIDS responses across eastern Europe and central Asia.

Beginning in the late 1990s, Ms Borushek was one of the earliest activists who defended the rights of people living with HIV at a time when an HIV-positive diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence. People living with HIV were just beginning to learn about access to treatment, and Ms Borushek was among only a few people in the region who openly disclosed their HIV status.

For Ms Borushek and other early activists, those years were very challenging. It required incredible bravery, faith in one’s strength and a fierce optimism that speaking up and acting up will save lives and change the future. Ms Borushek had all of those qualities and thankfully she demanded all of us to demonstrate at least some of those same qualities every day.

In 2001, she helped to found the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV. Thanks to her tireless energy and commitment to community activism, the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV is now one of the most powerful civil society organizations, not only in Ukraine, but globally.

Throughout her career she continued her studies, first at the Odesa University of Economics, then at the Socium School, as well as through study opportunities and internships in Poland, Germany and the United States of America on how to implement evidence-informed programmes for substitution therapy, health systems strengthening and support for people living with HIV, in particularly for injecting drug users.

Ms Borushek was recognized as one of the brightest activists in this new area, uniting civil society leadership with governance and the urgent, life-saving scale-up of antiretroviral therapy.

Ms Borushek quickly became an international symbol of Ukraine’s bold HIV activism. Together with Vladimir Zhovtyak, she participated in the first United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, in June 2001. In subsequent years, she took a leadership role in many international AIDS forums. As a member of the eastern Europe and central Asia delegation to the board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria from 2004 to 2009, she supported and advocated for the Global Fund’s first grants to eastern Europe and central Asia.

Ms Borushek’s professional focus was devoted to the establishment of a new, people-centred strategy on HIV in Ukraine, the roll-out of national programmes for antiretroviral therapy and substitution therapy and HIV care and support programmes implemented by the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV and its partners in Ukraine. Every day, Ms Borushek insisted that people living with HIV should not only be fully represented in the decision-making process, but also be engaged in the implementation of programmes and services.

In 2007, she was presented with an award for leadership, partnership and commitment to the national response to HIV in Ukraine. In 2007, Ms Borushek also received an award for international women’s leadership in the response to HIV at the International Women's Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.

I will always remember as her as one of the most passionate activists who always found the time to be a precious friend. Her vision and energy continue to live on in her daughter and granddaughter, in her friends and colleagues across the world and, of course, in the principles and programmes to which she dedicated her life.

Ms Borushek’s funeral took place on 26 November in Kyiv. Words of support for loved ones and condolences can be sent to the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV.

info@network.org.ua

By Vinay P. Saldana

Director, UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern Europe and Central Asia