The Hindu : AIDS spreading fast in Russia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 16, 2002

International

International

AIDS spreading fast in Russia

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW OCT. 15 . One Russian in a hundred is HIV infected and the proportion will soon double to one in fifty, Russian experts said. Commenting on a recent World Health Organisation report that listed Russia among top five AIDS-affected nations, the experts described the infection spread in this country as `alarming'.

The number of registered HIV cases has soared from 86,000 three years ago to 215,000 this year. To actual incidence of the deadly infection is 10 to 20 times higher, that is, between 1 to 2 million Russians out of the country's population of 146 million are HIV positive. Three-fourths of them are aged 15 to 25 and medics say they are likely to die from AIDS within the next 10 to 12 years.

``In the near future we will have between 3 to 4 million Russians tested HIV positive,'' Mr. Oleg Yurin, deputy head of the national AIDS prevention centre, told a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

Moscow has emerged as Russia's main hotbed of the disease, with up to five percent of the young people in the capital already HIV positive.

The spiralling drug addiction is the main cause of an HIV epidemic raging in Russia.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

Stories in this Section

Iraq, U.S. drift further apart

Troop reduction will help: Pakistan

Balasingham to meet Prabakaran

Bali blast a warning to U.S.: Russia

Pressure on Jakarta to nab terrorists

Sniper picks his ninth victim

AIDS spreading fast in Russia

NRI doctor's registration suspended

Musharraf may amend conduct of general elections order

Northern Ireland Govt. suspended

J&K polls free and fair: Russia