Anti-AIDS fight to be financed by UNO only in two regions of Russia

In January, 2003, Volgograd region will receive one million dollars for realization of UN programme “Complex Strategies and Co-operation in Resistance to HIV Epidemics in the Youth of the Russian Federation.” The programme will be financed only in two regions of Russia – in Volgograd region and in Altai region. At the recent sitting of the regional joint committee on fight against HIV, it was noticed that only within this year, 2,711 infected persons had been registered. Among the infected, there are 230 teenagers and even children. 96 percent of them had already used drag, and only 2 percent had been infected through sexual way. In some districts of the city of Volgograd, a concentrated HIV epidemics takes place. In 2002, 1,084 people were infected in Volgograd, while 91 of them are teenagers.

The main reason of the disease’s spread is that youth do not have organized leisure in Volgograd. A decision was taken, to create working groups in five big cities of Volgograd region: in Volgograd, Volzhsky, Kamyshin, Zhirnovsk, and Frolovo. The activity of the groups will be controlled by the regional administration and the regional centre on fight against AIDS.

Andrei Cherkasov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/13/42584.html