AIDS experts urged Russian officials today to scrap their abstinence-based strategy for curbing the spread of HIV, saying the country"s fast-growing epidemic could be entering a dangerous new phase, according to AP. AIDS specialists meeting here urged Russia to adopt successful strategies like needle-exchange programs and heroin substitutes such as methadone for drug addicts. The number of HIV infections in Russia has doubled in the past eight years. The rapid growth of the epidemic in Russia is in contrast to sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia, where prevalence of the virus fell during the same eight-year period, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS agency. Russia"s chief public health officer, Gennady Onishchenko, told a regional AIDS conference Wednesday that Russia is «emphatically against» the use of drug replacement therapy. Meanwhile, he criticized programs that exchange clean needles for used ones, saying such programs may promote illicit drug sales and HIV transmission.
