Access to Life is a collaboration between the Global Fund and Magnum Photos–eight photographers shoot 30 people in 9
different countries before & after antiretroviral treatment for AIDS.

Massaman Keïta, 31 and Fatoumata Camara, 20 (Farmers)
Read more about their story here

Igor Tereshenko, 24 (construction worker), St. Petersburg, Russia

Like many among the “lost generation” of young Russians cast adrift into an insecure future after the collapse
of the Soviet Union, Igor, former construction worker, was a heroin addict. He knew he had been infected by a dirty needle,
but wasn’t sure when, and found out that he was HIV-positive in 2003, while in prison serving a three-year term for
stabbing one of two men who had attacked his wife on the street. (In a sad postscript, his wife was murdered the day
before Igor was released from prison.) Igor remained healthy for years after his diagnosis but contracted pneumonia
in early 2007. Then, in the summer of 2007, he became paralyzed from the waist down after injecting heroin. At the St.
Petersburg Municipal AIDS Center, doctors told him he had suffered a spinal injury of some sort (Igor claimed the ambulance
team had beaten him up). The condition forced him to lie motionless, leading to the development of massive bed sores.
In fact, doctors discovered he was suffering from a cancerous tumor. Igor’s parents were both strongly supportive. His
mother became a cleaner at the hospital, which enabled her to sleep in his room at night and provide constant care.

Igor has begun antiretroviral therapy four months before his death on March 18, 2008, from cancer. Although he had made
excellent progress with relatively high CD4 count (his immune system had strengthened) and an undetectable viral load, his
doctors decided to discontinue his ARV treatment when they realized that he would soon die from his inoperable spinal tumor.

View more photos from the collection and read individual stories here.
Select individual countries to watch a narrated photo essay for every location. Extremely powerful stuff.