Compiled and edited by Martin Flynn
HIV 'riding on the back of heroin epidemic'
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From the streets of Europe to the jungles of South East
Asia, drug use is fuelling the spread of HIV infection.
A new EU report says that more than 25 per cent of IV drug users in Spain,
Amsterdam, Dundee in Scotland and some towns in Italy and Portugal have
HIV.
The Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
(EMCDDA) said that too few needles are distributed.
"When you consider that most intravenous drug users inject two to
three times a day, you can see that needle exchange programmes are not
providing enough coverage," said Lucas Wiessing.
In the UK, up to 500 needles are distributed or exchanged for each IV
drug user each year, the agency say, but in the rest of Europe less than
100 needles are offered or retained for each user.
But it is in the countries of the former Soviet Union that the problem
is most severe.
As many as 840,000 Russians are estimated to have HIV, 90 per cent of
them IV drug users. But the Kremlin has allocated only $3 million for
antiretroviral treatments this year and $2 million for prevention - approximately
one US cent per person per year.
Vadim Pikrowsku, director of the Moscow Centre for Prevention
and Treatment, said the Kremlin refuses to admit the scale of the problem:
"The government doesn't take the problem of Aids and Aids prevention
seriously."
A quarter of a million Ukrainians, or one per cent of the population, are HIV positive - the highest rate in Europe. Three out of four HIV infections are believed to be among drug
