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AIDS epidemic threatens region's economic development

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Despite a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, home to some 60 million, the epidemic could affect the region's economic development over the next 10 years if necessary measures were not taken immediately, a World Bank (WB) official has warned. "Eastern Europe and Central Asia are experiencing the world's fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic and in Central Asia it is at the earliest stages," Merrell Tuck-Primdahl, a senior external relations officer for Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank, told IRIN from the Irish capital Dublin. Although there is a lack of data on the issue, the available evidence illustrated a sharp increase in the epidemic in the region. "Registered cases have grown exponentially from less than a hundred in 1995 to more than 7,000 in 2003. So, it's a huge increase and these are only the registered cases," she maintained. The WB official noted, however, that the real number of infected people could be much higher given that few people were being tested or reporting their HIV-positive status. The World Bank estimates that the real number of HIV-positive cases in Central Asia could be close to some 90,000 - almost 13 times the official number. Kazakhstan reported the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the region of 0.14 percent, which was higher than its four neighbours combined. Since the first case in the largest Central Asian nation was reported in 1987, the number of officially registered cases had grown to almost 3,500 by March 2003, while UNAIDS experts estimate that the actual number of HIV-infected people in the country could be more than 20,000. The virus appears to be driven largely by fast-rising intravenous drug use (IDU) in the region, which has proven to be a crossroads for the transit of heroin produced in neighbouring Afghanistan. Injecting drug users account for 70-90 percent of new HIV-infected people, a recent report by the WB said, adding that young people were the most affected and that more than 80 percent of those who had tested HIV positive had not yet turned 30. Another concern was that these young people, just joining the work force, could potentially die from the deadly disease, affecting the dependency ratio. "It would mean a lot more sick people, fewer people earning a wage and putting a strain on the health care and the social protection system," Tuck-Primdahl explained, adding that the size of households could change as well, with more single parent households and households managed by elderly people, with grandparents taking care of orphans. "And all of this, of course, makes children more vulnerable since they are forced to drop out of school to work and take care of siblings, and this re-enforces the poverty trap. So it could be very profound if something is not done urgently," she warned. A recent regional estimate by the WB indicated that the growing epidemic could affect the economies of the regional nations and would take up to one percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) if it continued at its current rate. "The epidemic could take as much as 0.5 to 1 percent of GDP over the next 10 years and health expenditures could also increase by one to three percent," Tuck-Primdahl added. Meanwhile, another issue was an increase in HIV/AIDS cases among females. "What is starting to change is that now we see an increase amongst women and girls. The real concern is that it could spread to the bridge population - sex partners of ex-prisoners, commercial sex workers, etc - and it could then spread to the general population," Tuck-Primdahl noted. Reaffirming her worries, she gave an example of the epidemic's silent and insidious spread in Africa starting 15 to 20 years ago. "It may seem that the prevalence is low now but it's at a point where it could explode." Commenting on the regional governments' efforts to fight the epidemic, she said that all of them had national AIDS plans on the books but didn't have sufficient capacity to implement them now. "But we know that in Kyrgyzstan the government has been pretty open to some of the efforts of the USAID, Soros and other [international organisations]." "[But] I think it's not quite as big a priority in some of the other countries yet," she said. In an effort to mitigate the problem, the WB is considering launching a regional project to fight AIDS and TB in Central Asia in two years or so. "What we are hoping is that it could be a regional project with some grant elements," the WB official said.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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