Russia: Up to 1.5 Million Locals Have HIV
Posted on: Friday, 18 April 2003, 06:00 CDT
MOSCOW (AP) -- Up to 1.5 million Russians have contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the nation's top expert on the disease said Thursday.
AIDS came lately to Russia but spread rapidly as intravenous drug use has grown and prevention programs have been weak.
Russia has officially registered 235,000 HIV cases. However, Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Health Ministry's AIDS Prevention and Treatment Center, told a news conference that the actual infection rate was much higher: an estimated 700,000 to 1.5 million.
Pokrovsky said the number of sexually transmitted HIV cases was on the rise.
Earlier this month, Russia accepted a $150 million World Bank loan to combat the rapid spread of AIDS and tuberculosis in the country.
Pokrovsky said the most affected regions are the Urals and Siberia.
Approximately 37,000 inmates, or 3 percent to 4 percent of the total prison population, have HIV, the Interfax news agency quoted Sergei Selivanov, the chief public health office in the Justice Ministry's prisons department, as saying.
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