AIDS epidemic in Russia can get out of control

Moscow - The AIDS epidemic in Russia, accompanied by high levels of drug addiction, may be "out of control" in 2020 if not allocated more resources to the fight against the disease, said on Friday the Minister of the Russian Health Veronika Skvortsova.

At a meeting of government health committee, the minister said that the number of HIV-positive people in the country could increase by 250% by 2020 if it maintained the current percentage of people receiving treatment.

"The current level of funding allows us to offer antiretroviral treatment to about 200,000 HIV-positive people, a 23% coverage in 2015. If the price of medicines is reduced, a maximum percentage of people receiving treatment, 25% can be achieved at 30 % ", said the minister, quoted by the local press.

"In this situation, we will have a generalized epidemic of HIV and AIDS scenario in which the number of infected people will increase 250% by 2020," he said.

Due to this threat, the minister announced that next year the funding for the fight against AIDS will increase by US $ 330 million. Russia has about one million people with HIV today, and the number continues to grow.

Last year alone, 90,000 Russian citizens contracted the virus, 30 times more than the number of ifectados in Germany (three thousand), the country with the lowest infection rate in Europe, a difference that does not match the population difference.

The main cause for that AIDS continues to rise in Russia - while the epidemic is reduced worldwide - is the existence of 1.5 million heroin users intravenously, said at the same meeting the director of the Federal Service for Control Narcotics, Viktor Ivanov.

"There are 1.5 million heroin addicts who inject two to eight times a day. So, every year are held over two billion heroin injections," he added.

According to Ivanov, the data that has "confirmed that one of the causes of the spread of HIV viruses are injections of Afghan heroin. Almost all the people identified with the virus are toxicomaníacas intravenously or people who have had sex with drug addicts."

One of the problems to stop the contagion is that "these toxicomaníacos not seek treatment, on the contrary, avoid any contact with health centers and run the security forces," he said.

"A whole army of toxicomaníacos, circulating freely among society is sowing and spreading diseases, infections such as hepatitis of all types and AIDS," he said.

Recently, the director of the federal agency for AIDS, Vadim Pokrovsky, called the situation with this disease as a "national catastrophe."

In an interview, Pokrovsky warned that Russia should devote ten times more resources to prevent new infections, but also referred to the need for a change of mentality in the country to address the problem, since both the authorities and the Orthodox Church encourages conservative policies the area of ​​sex education.

"The last five years of conservative approach led to a doubling of cases of HIV infection," Pokrovsky said, referring to events such as religious preaching, it should promote loyalty and not use condoms. Pokrovsky also reported that in Russia it is forbidden the use of methadone for medical treatment of drug addicts.

Experts also consider homophobia in the country as a barrier for the prevention of AIDS, as many homosexuals do not take the exam for fear of being stigmatized.