{"id":6334,"date":"2011-12-22T00:39:17","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T22:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/12\/insight-russia-says-no-to-wests-way-with-hiv\/"},"modified":"2011-12-22T00:39:17","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T22:39:17","slug":"insight-russia-says-no-to-wests-way-with-hiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/insight-russia-says-no-to-wests-way-with-hiv\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIGHT-Russia says no to West&#8217;s way with HIV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* This updates a Special Report on HIV in Russia<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* For a PDF of that report: <a href=\"http:\/\/link.reuters.com\/naq67r\">link.reuters.com\/naq67r<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Amie Ferris-Rotman<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>MOSCOW, Dec 21 (Reuters) &#8211; In 2010, President Dmitry<br \/>\nMedvedev said heroin was a threat to Russia&#8217;s national security.<br \/>\nThis year, Russia pledged to finance programmes to reduce the<br \/>\nharm done by drug use, including an HIV crisis that is one of<br \/>\nthe most severe in the world.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>But even though the number of new HIV infections in Russia<br \/>\njumped 10 percent over 2011, health workers and global HIV<br \/>\nauthorities say Moscow has not honoured that promise.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is not due to a lack of cash &#8211; Russia is doubling its<br \/>\nbudget for HIV in 2012 from 2010 levels. At issue is how it will<br \/>\nuse the funds. From next year, no money will go to such<br \/>\ninternationally recognised efforts as needle exchanges. None has<br \/>\never gone to heroin substitution: the Russian authorities oppose<br \/>\nit. Moscow doesn&#8217;t believe these approaches help slow the spread<br \/>\nof HIV\/AIDS.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Working on drug dependency is more effective than needle<br \/>\nexchange and methadone programmes,&#8221; said Alexei Mazus, who heads<br \/>\nthe Moscow Centre for HIV\/AIDS Prevention, one of around 100<br \/>\nsuch venues across the country run by the health ministry.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In areas where needle exchanges have taken place, he said<br \/>\nthe health ministry had seen new HIV cases increase, not fall.<br \/>\nRussia&#8217;s health ministry said last year it had evidence that HIV<br \/>\nrates have tripled in areas where foreign-run needle exchange<br \/>\nprogrammes were running.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The United Nations says so-called &#8220;harm reduction&#8221;<br \/>\nprogrammes &#8211; needle exchanges, and using methadone as a<br \/>\nsubstitute for heroin &#8211; are effective in slowing the spread of<br \/>\nHIV. Methadone reduces the risk of infection by dirty needles<br \/>\nbecause it can be swallowed, rather than injected.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* 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) &#8211; In 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev said heroin was a threat to Russia&#8217;s national security. This year, Russia pledged to finance programmes to reduce the harm done by drug use, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-6334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}