Russian drug policies under spotlight at AIDS conference (Roundup)

Moscow - The number of HIV cases in Russia is rising and potentially out of control due to poor health policies, a regional conference hosted in Moscow on AIDS heard Wednesday. Russia now has around 1 million HIV-infected people and around 2 million injecting drug addicts, the Head of the International Aids Society (IAS), Robin Gorna, told the two-day conference. Experts at the seminar called on the government to spend more on education and on providing clean syringes and needles to intravenous drug users. Whilst there is still no known cure for AIDS, treatment for HIV- infected patients has improved radically in recent years with the growth of retroviral drugs. 'It's about time the government was truly committed to preventing HIV infection,' Gorna warned. 'The HIV epidemic among drug users in Russia could easily be prevented,' added scientist Gerry Stimson. He blamed the rapid increase in infections on 'years of government inaction on prevention policies.' The conference also heard calls for the authorities in Moscow to permit the use of the heroin substitute methadone. Russia's chief doctor, Gennady Onischenko, however, refused point blank to do so, citing other effective Russian treatment programmes - without naming any. Russia is now the world leader in drug abuse, local media reported this week, with cheap heroin from Afghanistan combining with dirty needles to push up the number of HIV infections. The number of drug addicts has risen 20-fold since the collapse of Communism 20 years ago, whilst each year around 30,000 people die from illegal drug use. Around 80 per cent of those infected with HIV are under the age of 30, the conference heard. However, Russia intends to spend 13.4 billion roubles (309 million euros) on the fight against AIDS in 2010, Russian parliamentarian and member of the Duma health committee, Larissa Shoigu, said. The two-day Eastern Europe and Central Asia Aids Conference (EECAAC) - the third of its kind - is taking place in Moscow. Representatives of around 60 countries in the region, as well as experts and organizations from other parts of Europe and the United States, are working to combat HIV/AIDS at the conference.