Devastating HIV epidemic hits Russia - World Socialist Web Site
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Devastating HIV epidemic hits Russia
By Clara Weiss
10 January 2017
A quarter century after the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, an HIV epidemic, closely bound up with massive heroin consumption, is raging in Russia. It is a devastating indictment of the social catastrophe that was brought about by the restoration of capitalism.
According to Vadim Pokrovski, head of the Federal AIDS Centre in Moscow, around 850,000 Russians were diagnosed with HIV at the beginning of 2016. Another 220,000 have died of AIDS since the late 1980s. He estimates that another half-million Russians are infected, but not diagnosed, with HIV. An estimated 100,000 were newly infected in 2016.