* This updates a Special Report on HIV in Russia
* For a PDF of that report: link.reuters.com/naq67r
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
MOSCOW, Dec 21 (Reuters) – In 2010, President Dmitry
Medvedev said heroin was a threat to Russia’s national security.
This year, Russia pledged to finance programmes to reduce the
harm done by drug use, including an HIV crisis that is one of
the most severe in the world.
But even though the number of new HIV infections in Russia
jumped 10 percent over 2011, health workers and global HIV
authorities say Moscow has not honoured that promise.
This is not due to a lack of cash – Russia is doubling its
budget for HIV in 2012 from 2010 levels. At issue is how it will
use the funds. From next year, no money will go to such
internationally recognised efforts as needle exchanges. None has
ever gone to heroin substitution: the Russian authorities oppose
it. Moscow doesn’t believe these approaches help slow the spread
of HIV/AIDS.
“Working on drug dependency is more effective than needle
exchange and methadone programmes,” said Alexei Mazus, who heads
the Moscow Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention, one of around 100
such venues across the country run by the health ministry.
In areas where needle exchanges have taken place, he said
the health ministry had seen new HIV cases increase, not fall.
Russia’s health ministry said last year it had evidence that HIV
rates have tripled in areas where foreign-run needle exchange
programmes were running.
The United Nations says so-called “harm reduction”
programmes – needle exchanges, and using methadone as a
substitute for heroin – are effective in slowing the spread of
HIV. Methadone reduces the risk of infection by dirty needles
because it can be swallowed, rather than injected.
Continued…
