People that still equate HIV / AIDS as a gay problem need to wake up and wake up fast. New recently out of Russia tells us of one of their grand cities and its telling of their HIV numbers.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian health officials say one in 50 people in Russia's fourth-largest city are infected with the HIV virus.
Regional Deputy Health Minister Tatiana Savinova said the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg suffers from an HIV epidemic, according to a statement widely reported Wednesday by Russian media. The city of 1.5 million has 27,000 people, or 1.8 percent of the population, carrying the virus.
The rate of new HIV infections is increasing rapidly in Russia, which bans some preventative measures common in other parts of the world such as methadone therapy for intravenous drug users.
About 800,000 people in Russia are currently registered as HIV-positive, but officials say the actual number of people with the virus is likely to be almost double that. – businessinsider.com
One in 50 or 800,000, but could be 1.6 million. No number is good, but what is scary is how fast either one of these numbers could grow. Cbsnews.com shares some not so positive outlook for the future and elaborates on why these numbers are increasing.
At the current rate, some Russian officials expect the number of infections to double every five years.
While the majority of new infections are acquired through intravenous drug use, heterosexual sex is rising as a source of transmission and accounts for just over 40 percent of new cases.
HIV infections in Russia are concentrated in large manufacturing cities in southern Siberia and along drug trafficking routes that begin in Central Asia and extend to Europe. Russia’s Sverdlovsk Region, of which Yekaterinburg is the capital, is the region most heavily infected with HIV in Russia, according to Savinova.
“The situation is identical in all the country’s industrial cities. It’s just that Yekaterinburg is tackling the detection of infected people and is not afraid to talk about it,” Yekaterinburg Mayor Evgeny Roisman said Wednesday, the Vesti television channel reported.
Last week, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed off on a new government strategy to reduce the number of new HIV infections in the country and increase access to treatment for people already infected. – cbsnews.com
"Yekaterinburg is tackling the detection of infected people and is not afraid to talk about it.” So other cities could have equally devastating number or even be worse.
Does this new information scream for international help?
Will Russia see this as an epidemic that needs to be turned around?
What are your thoughts Instincters?