Low graphics   |   Mobile      Login   |   About us      
Tue, 1 Dec 21:25:02 GMT17

 
AIDS in E.Europe/C.Asia

Last reviewed: 17-12-2008
Ukrainian girls hold candles during an AIDS awareness rally in Kiev, 2005.
Ukrainian girls hold candles during an AIDS awareness rally in Kiev, 2005.
The AIDS epidemic is growing fast in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The number of people with HIV/AIDS has more than doubled in less than a decade, and now stands at 1.5 million.

  • 90 percent of infections are in Russian Federation and Ukraine
  • 110,000 new infections in 2007
  • Epidemic fuelled by injecting drug use and sex work

    The vast majority of the region's HIV/AIDS cases are in the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Two-thirds are injecting drug users, but there are a growing number of infections caused by unprotected sex, especially in Eastern Europe.

    Treatment is poor. In December 2007 just 17 percent of those who needed it were receiving anti-retroviral drugs. Injecting drug users are particularly weakly covered.

    The official number of people with HIV in the Russian Federation is 370,000, but the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said in 2008 that the actual figure was much higher at about 940,000 at the end of 2005.

    In Russia, high youth unemployment, a boom in drug trafficking and the growth of informal economies have all fuelled rampant injecting drug use. But the virus now appears increasingly to be spreading by injecting drug users having unprotected sex with their partners. In 2006, 44 percent of new infections were in women - most of them partners of drug users.

    There has been a similar trend in Ukraine, where more than half of all new HIV infections were due to unprotected sex with injecting drug users. Sex work is also a key factor, with as many as 27 percent of sex workers in the city of Mikolayev being HIV-positive. The epidemic is still concentrated in high-risk groups - drug users and their partners, sex workers and men who have sex with men. Less than 1 percent of pregnant women in urban areas have HIV.

    The biggest epidemic in Central Asia is in Uzbekistan, which straddles major drug-trafficking routes. About 16,000 people were living with HIV in 2007, the majority injecting drug users. Since many of them rarely use a condom there is a strong likelihood the virus will spread to their partners.

    UNAIDS has warned that an increase in risky behaviour - drug use and unprotected sex - in the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia could spark new epidemics across the region.

    Turkmenistan could be among those most at risk due to a lack of sexual health education and poor medical facilities. However, the republic's isolation makes it almost impossible to obtain data on the number of infections there.

    KEY FACTS


    Number infected 1.5 million (UNAIDS 2008)
    Number of new infections in 2007 110,000 (UNAIDS 2008)

    Unlike some other content on this website, the written content in this article may be republished or redistributed by any means free of charge. Any use of photographs and graphics on this website is expressly prohibited. You must check whether written content contained in other articles on this website may be republished or redistributed without the express permission of Reuters or the relevant third party provider.

    • Related articles

    Breaking stories
     Americas GLOBAL: Falling foul of the fund

    Americas Bill Threatens Progress on HIV/AIDS

    AlertNet insight
     Post-conflict areas vulnerable to HIV/AIDS-report

    Aid agency news feed
     Asia AmeriCares Honors World AIDS Day

    Blogs
     Hitler stars in AIDS awareness video

    Maps
     Americas MAP: HIV, estimated prevalence, 2007


    AlertNet for journalists

    AlertNet for journalists is a set of tools and services designed to make life easier for reporters, fact-checkers and editors when covering humanitarian emergencies.
    Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2009-12-01T131016Z_01_RIG01_RTRIDSP_2_LATVIA_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/RIG01.htm
    Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2009-12-01T125955Z_01_RIG02_RTRIDSP_2_LATVIA_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/RIG02.htm
    Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2009-12-01T020821Z_01_POY0184_RTRIDSP_2_POY_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/POY0184.htm
    Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2009-11-30T130952Z_01_RIG05_RTRIDSP_2_LATVIA_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/RIG05.htm
    Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2009-11-30T115057Z_01_BCR05_RTRIDSP_2_ROMANIA_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/BCR05.htm

    A woman walks past police officers observing students during a protest in Riga December 1, 2009. About 5000 students staged a protest march from Latvia's Government house to Parliament to protest ...


    More pictures | Galleries

    * Denotes mandatory entry      Rate this item *  
    • Currently 4/5 Stars.
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5


    Name: *     Email: * 
    I am: *     


    Comments:

    Enter the code shown on the left *




    URL: http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/EE_HIV.htm

    For our full disclaimer and copyright information please visit http://www.alertnet.org