AIDS Crisis Catches Russia Off Guard

While Russia's health officials are warning of an unchecked epidemic, the Kremlin allotted $3 million for antiretroviral treatments this year -- enough to treat roughly 500 of Russia's 201,000 registered HIV cases. The $2 million it earmarked for AIDS prevention is about one cent per person per year, ten times less than the country needs in order to be effective, noted Vadim Pokrovsky, director of the Moscow-based Center for AIDS Prevention and Treatment. Meanwhile, efforts to introduce sex education in high schools have been thwarted by parents, who fear it would encourage teenagers to have sex, or by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Pokrovsky believes the Kremlin refuses to admit the scale of the problem because it doesn't want to frighten foreign investors away and because its scarce financial resources are devoted to the conflict in Chechnya and a military badly in need of repair. This is in contrast to the nearly $2 billion allocated for St. Petersburg's 300th birthday celebration next May. "Apparently, the government doesn't take the problem of AIDS and AIDS prevention seriously," Pokrovsky said.

In some Russian cities, such as St. Petersburg -- which has an estimated 70,000 intravenous drug users and 17,000 registered cases of HIV -- charity-funded needle exchange programs operate despite the disapproval of some AIDS officials. But these programs reach a small fraction of Russia's endangered drug abusers, says Aza Gasmanova, St. Petersburg's top epidemiologist.

Private AIDS organizations barely make ends meet, said Nikolai Panchenko, chairman of the St. Petersburg Society for People with HIV-AIDS. His budget for 2001 was $2,000. Volunteers often have to seek donations in the street to keep the group afloat. "On a good day, we can get 300 rubles (less than $10)," said the group's press secretary, Viktor Bakayev.

While rare state-funded television commercials show former intravenous drug users confessing that they became infected through dirty needles, AIDS experts say the TV spots fail to target people who do not use drugs -- a fast-growing segment of the HIV-positive population. "What we need is a continuous, long- term campaign," Bakayev said.

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