CNews broke the story on Thursday; the article caused a stir and was immediately republished by many Russian Internet media sources. The fact that the money for the smartphone was granted by the Elton John Foundation, as the website claims, fuelled the situation.
It is not yet established whether it is true or not but it is obvious that the money is not relevant to a multi-million grant allocated by the foundation to support HIV prevention and HIV service organizations in Russia, which was announced at the 22nd International AIDS Conference 2018 in Amsterdam and caused a real sensation.
According to Vladimir Mayanovsky, the Chairman of the All-Russian Union of People Living with HIV and the member of the Advisory Board to the Emergency Support Fund for Key Populations, selected by Elton John to facilitate the grant, no one has received any money on the program yet so no phones could have been bought with it.
‘I can't comment on that because I don’t know what money the Irkutsk AIDS Center made purchases with – doing things like that is typical of Irkutsk in general – but it is certainly not the money that was allocated in Amsterdam,’ the activist told AIDS.CENTER.
According to him, the grant facilitator has yet to pick out the applications and define the needs that will be financed in the future. The first face-to-face meeting of the Advisory Board will take place on Monday, 26 November 2018 in Amsterdam.
It is noteworthy that the Irkutsk Regional Center for Prevention and Control of AIDS and Infectious Diseases is a state budget institution reporting to the Russian Ministry of Health, it is neither a socially focused NGO, nor a charity fund that the British singer’s money are aimed at.
Citing the head doctor of this medical institution Julia Plotnikova, media reported earlier that the phones had been bought to be used internally by the hospital staff. They are meant to have a special application installed on them, which will allow HIV or tuberculosis patients to contact health workers promptly. The application requires the latest version of iOS so it can be installed only on the most recent models.
UPD:
The head of the state AIDS Center Julia Plotnikova’s comment on the situation appeared at Takie Dela website after this article had already been published.
‘The phone was purchased with the funds under the contract between the AIDS Center and the University of Virginia (USA). This research university acts as the Elton John AIDS Foundation grant contractor to support research project called “Bridge Irkutsk: Scaling up testing for target populations and linkage to and retention in care for PLHIV”’.
The contract budget, as the website points out, provides for purchase of smartphones or other supplies to remain with the AIDS Center when the project is over.