Prisoners Need Help to Fight AIDS: Activists

In the fight against HIV, little attention has been paid to the role of prisons around the world, according to information presented Tuesday at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

Experts said overcrowding, sex, unsanitary tattooing, injection drug use, the lack of sexual health services and homosexuality's status as illegal in some countries have combined to turn prisons into HIV/AIDS "incubators."

"There must be a change in attitudes [toward prisoners]," said Dr. Anne De Groot, editor of the Infectious Diseases in Corrections Report at Brown University. Though they are rarely mentioned in discussions of AIDS, inmates deserve the same help as other groups, she said.

In countries where gay sex is criminalized, discussions about safe sex and HIV are difficult, said Rick Ones, director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust. "You have to deal with these legal issues," he said.

Authorities believe there are many more AIDS cases in Canadian prisons than the 1,729 that have been officially recorded, said Connor McCollum of the Prisoners' HIV/AIDS Support Action Network. While condoms and lubricants have been available in Canadian prisons since 1992, many inmates decline to ask for help because they fear being outed, he said.

UNAIDS reports there are 600,000 injection drug users in Ukraine. A study presented at the conference said HIV infection rates in seven Ukrainian prisons ranged from 16 percent to 91.5 percent.

Morag McDonald said 50 needle distribution programs are operating in prisons in eight countries. These, she said, have seen a drop in heroin overdoses, no increase in drug use, no new HIV cases and no cases in which needles were used as weapons.

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