HIV cases on the rise

A UN official in the capital Tashkent warned of an upsurge in HIV cases in Uzbekistan if proper measures were not taken to counter the threat. Intercountry programme advisor for UNAIDS Rudick Adamian told IRIN on Wednesday that 228 HIV cases had been detected to date, double the amount of last year, primarily in the town of Yangiyol near Tashkent and in the capital itself. He warned, however, this figure did not reflect the real threat of the situation. "You can not look at just these igures as there is an extremely high prevalence of HIV amongst drug users in Uzbekistan - 80 percent to be exact. Given this dangerous prevalence I would describe this situation as serious. If proper measures are not taken, within a couple of days or months, this could get out of hand." The government response to the crisis has so far been positive, he said. "The government is taking this very seriously and in addition to UN sponsored programmes in Yangiyol, they have expanded the programme nation-wide and have asked us for further technical and logistical support," he said. "Of particular importance is the needle exchange programme which has been started in all regions. We are now trying to expand these activities to reach as many drug users as possible, providing them with education and counselling," he added. According to a UNAIDS/WHO report in December, 21.8 million people worldwide have died from AIDS and 36.1 million are currently living with HIV/AIDS. [For further details, see UNAIDS' epidemiological fact sheet at: http://www.unaids.org/hivaidsinfo/statistics/june00/fact_sheets/pdfs/uzbekistan.pdf]