KIEV, Dec 20 (AFP) - The World Bank said here Friday that it has allocated 60 million dollars (euros) to combatting AIDS and tuberculosis in Ukraine where both diseases are rampant.
The World Bank is set to deliver the first part of the sum in February after the Ukrainian parliament ratifies the loan, Kiev bank official Olexander Kaliberda said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
Some 50,000 Ukrainians, including nearly 4,000 children, are HIV-positive and 3,700 have full-blown AIDS, according to health ministry figures.
Experts have said the total number of people infected with the AIDS virus in the former Soviet state could be as high as 500,000 people.
The majority of Ukrainians infected with the virus are between the ages of 15 and 24.
The number of people infected with tuberculosis has jumped 73 percent since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The number of people infected during the first nine months of 2002 is 13.9 percent higher than the same period in 2001, official figures said.
On Thursday, the European Union said it would grant Kiev a two million euro loan to battle tuberculosis.
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