Russia to Be Hit With AIDS

AIDS is soon to overwhelm Russia with consequences that may be even more catastrophic than in Africa, yet the public is barely aware that the epidemic has arrived, Russia's top AIDS official reports. "Every year, we see the number of new cases doubling. If this continues even two or three more years, we will see not 1 percent, but 2, 4, 8," said Vadim Pokrovsky, head of Russia's official AIDS Center. Russia and Ukraine have been caught unprepared for the world's fastest-growing epidemic of HIV. Of Russia's 180,000 registered infections, 100,000 occurred just last year. Experts guess the actual number is as high as 1 million, more than 1 percent of adults.

Clinics are not packed with the dying; there are no armies of orphans, or destitute patients begging on the streets. The untreated will not begin to die by the thousands for a decade; yet virtually nothing is being done to prepare society for the consequences, Pokrovsky said.

Already, however, Russia's HIV epidemic is far worse than in Western Europe and North America. Just how much worse it will get is not clear. It began among Russia's drug users and has not yet spread widely through heterosexual sex. But Pokrovsky points to sky-high rates of other STDs, which are signs of risky sexual practices that increase the chance of transmitting HIV. Russia's syphilis rate is hundreds of times higher than in the West.

Even if Russia's epidemic stops before it reaches double-digit infection rates, the demographic and economic impact would prove severe. So far, the state is only treating 5,000 patients. But to keep up just with registered cases, it will have to treat 100,000 in 2005, and costs will explode. So far, though Pokrovsky treats a handful of prominent public figures with HIV, he has had little success in winning funds for a public relations campaign against AIDS/HIV.

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