HIV Epidemic Rapidly Expanding in Rural Russia

CDC reports today that the number of new HIV cases in Russia is growing rapidly, not only in large cities but also in rural areas.

Orel Oblast, a predominantly agricultural province in central European Russia, has seen a 40-fold increase in HIV between 1998 and 2001. The annual rate of new positive HIV tests increased from 5 per 100,000 tests in 1998 to 202 per 100,000 in 2001, a period when testing patterns remained stable. Officials with CDC and the Orel Oblast AIDS Center report the "overwhelming majority" of new HIV cases occurred among young male injection drug users.

However, recent data point to a shift in Orel Oblast's HIV epidemic from IDUs to their heterosexual partners and the general heterosexual population. In 2001, nearly half of the HIV-infected women and more than 10 percent of the HIV-infected men in Orel Oblast were exposed to HIV through heterosexual sex. Half of those infected heterosexually had partners who were IDUs.

"I must say this is what we have seen in other places of a really rapid initial increase in HIV," CDC epidemiologist Dr. Shannon L. Hader said. "Because Orel was doing good monitoring and good surveillance for HIV, they were able to identify this initial rapid increase in cases, and perhaps, with good prevention activities, catastrophe can be avoided."

In addition to general prevention activities, she said specific efforts encouraging IDUs to get off drugs or build skills for safer injecting and sexual practices are needed to curb the HIV epidemic among Russian IDUs and their partners.

The full report, "Rapid Increase in HIV Rates -- Orel Oblast, Russian Federation, 1999-2001," is published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (July 18, 2003;52(28):657-660).

Back to other news for July 18, 2003