AIDS thriving on Russia’s young drug users

The HIV infection situation in Russia is getting worse, senior Health Ministry officials announced at a Tuesday meeting. Nearly 46,500 new cases of HIV infection were registered last year, 2.9 times more than the year before and almost one and a half times the number of all HIV infections in all the 12 years of its registration. Young people in the 16-29 age group, mainly drug users, account for most of the infected. The ministry officials passed a resolution calling for the development of a federal Anti-HIV/AIDS program for 2002-07, Interfax reports.