Epidemic HIV/AIDS in Russia: A Fast Growing Infectious Disease of the World, Main Source Needle Exchange to Inject Heroin
Russia has one of the quickest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world. In the year 2015, Russians were determined to have HIV that has approximately 95,000, and for the first nine months of 2016, they roughly reach to 75,000. However, there is a little sign that the administration will commit enough resources to stem the speeding up of the virus from high-hazard groups into the general population.
The New York Times reported that since late 1980's, Vadim Pokrovsky, the long-lasting leader of Moscow-based Federal AIDS Center said that around 850,000 Russians carry the HIV and 220,000 died because of it. The general estimate of casualties constitutes about 1 percent of Russia's population that counts 143 million, sufficiently to be treated as an epidemic. Further with that, they said that heterosexual would be soon top intravenous drug use as the main method for infection.
Mr. Pokrovsky said that this epidemic is considered as a threat to the whole country which the caseload is expanding around 10 percent every year. In 2016, 100,000 new infectious disease are foreseen, about 275 day by day. HIV will be the biggest epidemic in Europe and among the highest rates of disease. Under World Health Organization rules, to diminish the spread of the infection, at least 90 percent of HIV-positive patients will receive an antiviral drug.
On The Seattle Times, it stated that there is more than 37 percent who receive the treatment, as indicated to the government statistic. According to Vinay P. Saldana, the UNAIDS provincial executive that prevention projects are not working as the coverage is not adequate to break the curve. As for the UNAIDS figures, Russia is among the five nations that have almost half the new diseases globally; the other nations are South Africa, Nigeria, India, and Uganda. Even though in some of them has a much higher rate of the overall population is infected.
The annual $338 million budget of the Russian government for HIV was spent on medicines, and nothing goes to the preventive education. The health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, has repeatedly asked for extended medication programs that the administration needs. After a profound retreat, however, small new money has emerged.
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of latinpost.com