Experts Say Afghan Heroin Spreading AIDS

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Heroin flowing out of Afghanistan is creating a new AIDS epidemic among drug addicts in Eurasia, where the disease once had been rare, scientists said Monday.

Dr. Christopher Beyrer said a rising number of HIV infections had been detected in Belarus, Iran, Moldavia, Tajikistan, the Ukraine and other countries along the route traffickers use to smuggle Afghan heroin into Eastern Europe.

HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, is often spread among intravenous drug users who share needles.

Beyrer said the situation was especially dangerous because only about 10 percent of drug users have access to needle exchange and drug substitution programs in those countries, where cheap heroin has become readily available since the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was toppled.

Beyrer, an associate professor of epidemiology and international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, spoke Monday at the Third International AIDS Society Conference on Pathogenesis and Treatment.

The four-day conference, which ends Wednesday, has assembled some 5,000 scientists, health care providers and public policy specialists to discuss the latest advances in the fight against AIDS.

“Today’s presentations give us a window into an evolving epidemic that is growing steadily more severe,” said Dr. Celso Ramos, a former president of the Brazilian Infectology Society. “The global response must be as dynamic as the epidemic itself.”

The fight against AIDS was given a new impetus earlier this month after world leaders at the G8 meeting in Scotland endorsed the goal of universal access to antiretroviral treatment by 2010.

Antiretroviral drugs are the only available treatment for the disease. The drugs are effective but expensive, and many patients have side effects and develop resistance to them over time.