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Rio de Janeiro (pte036/27.07.2005/15:29) - At the International Aids Society Conference http://www.iasociety.org in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, researchers warned that an epidemic of HIV infections is sweeping along the well-known heroin-trafficking highways from Afghanistan to Eastern Europe. The number of cases is rising due to inadequate access to drug treatment, sharing needles, and the users being close to the trafficking routes.
"This HIV/AIDS epidemic is just beginning and the virus is, again, ahead of our responses," says Chris Beyrer from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health http://faculty.jhsph.edu/?F=Chris&L=Beyrer . "Drug treatment and HIV prevention must be implemented now, everywhere the heroin is flowing."
There are about 1.4 million HIV-positive people living in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, most of them having contracted the virus through needle-sharing, says Beyrer.
The researcher warns that Eastern Europe is set for an 'explosive boom', even though currently less than 2 per cent are HIV positive. Cases in Estonia, for example rocketed from 0 to 450 in less than a year between 1999 and 2000. The drug users are mostly male and sexually active.
A direct link has been traced from Afghanistan, where 420 tonnes of heroin was produced last year. HIV infections are also becoming more prevalent in the neighbouring Iran and Tajikistan.
Tajikistan, the poorest former Soviet Union country, is on the direct heroin-trafficking route. The percentage of HIV-positive drug users rose in 2004 to 12 per cent, up from 4 per cent three years earlier.
Beyrer thinks there is hope, saying that in Brazil, which introduced aggressive HIV prevention strategies in the drug-using community, transmission rates have dropped. He urges needle exchange programmes, also in the US, which does not fund them, and intensified drug education programmes and facilities.
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