HIV in Ukraine & Baltics -- crisis

[Robert Harris]

Perhaps this should go in the thread "When it rains it pouts" -- as if these people don't have enouhg problems.

MOSCOW Feb. 17 ? Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic nation of Estonia have some of the world's fastest HIV growth rates, the United Nations Development Program declared in a report released Tuesday. The world body said one in every 100 adults of the three countries is infected.

According to the report on HIV and AIDS in the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, and Eastern Europe, the HIV crisis poses a threat to the region's economic growth, placing new pressure on already threadbare social welfare programs.

"It is already too late to speak of avoiding a crisis," said Kalman Mizsei, the U.N. Development Program's assistant administrator for Europe and the CIS, in a statement.

From: http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20040217_703.html


OI knew it was bad, but not this bad...

[David McDuff]

Perhaps this should go in the thread "When it rains it pouts" -- as if these people don't have enouhg problems.



OI knew it was bad, but not this bad...


One contributing factor - in the Baltics, especially, but no doubt also in Russia and Ukraine - is the overcrowding in prisons. A recent ICPS study found that "the number of persons in prisons in Central Europe is between 160 and 200 people per 100,000 population, or about twice the rate in the 15 EU member countries. The figures for Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are 226, 351, and 362 prisoners per 100,000 residents, putting them in the top 30 countries with the highest rates of incarceration."

[Robert Harris]

O thought the main result of the overcrowding of prisons was the high incidence of pneumonia and other easily spread things.

Back when I was in Russia stories abounded that one of the major contributing factors to the growth of AIDS was the medical care system. Hospotals and clinics did not seem to have disposable syringes, so reused theirs, and did not do a good job of sterilization.
(I still have a large supply of disposable syringes -- I took about 100 with me when I went over and would not travel around without a few tucked in my briefcase or suitcase.)

[David McDuff]

O thought the main result of the overcrowding of prisons was the high incidence of pneumonia and other easily spread things.



Yes, but according to the ICPS (International Centre for Prison Studies, based in London UK) survey, the spread of tuberculosis and AIDS is one of the main results of the overcrowding.

Hospotals and clinics did not seem to have disposable syringes, so reused theirs, and did not do a good job of sterilization.

What you report on the Russian health system rings true - I also remember that things were pretty bad in Soviet times, and they probably have not improved much.

Since in the Baltic states drug use is widespread in prisons, the syringe problem doubtless exists in them, too.

It's a matter for speculation why there should be such a large prison population in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

[Allene]

I wonder how many of those beautiful young prostitutes I saw all over Russia in 1993 are now dead or at the least HIV-positive?

[ethics]

I'd bet all of them based on what I saw there and the lack of information. Heck, it was more of denial.

[Allene]

How very sad! I remember looking at these girls and wondering if they had any idea of what they were getting into.

[Robert Harris]

They may have vaguely known, but had not much choice. They had only one thing to sell in order to survive -- at least many or them -- and they sold it.