RIGA, Dec 20 (AFP) - The number of HIV positive inmates in Latvian prisons more than doubled this year, officials said Thursday, prompting calls for more spending to slow the spread of the virus which causes AIDS.

Roberts Girgensons, deputy director of the Latvian prison administration's medical department, said 453 prisoners currently have the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV), a 130 percent increase over the 197 HIV positive prisoners at the end of last year.

Latvia's prison system held 8,617 people on December 14.

With spending for Latvia's National AIDS Prevention Center having remained at the same level since 1993, more money needs to be spent to slow the spread of the disease said the center's deputy director, Inga Upmerce.

"Not enough is being spent on prisons or AIDS prevention generally," said Upmerce.

"Eighty percent of HIV carriers are drug users but the government does not pay for needle exchanges and social workers to work with risk groups," she told AFP.

All efforts to protect drug users in Latvia is funded by foreign donors like the Soros Foundation, she added.

In the general population in Latvia, the number of HIV carriers increased 86 percent this year to 1,745, according to official figures.

The European Union, which Latvia hopes to join by 2004, has repeatedly criticized the state of the country's justice system and conditions in its overcrowded prisons.

The increase in HIV infection rates in ex-communist bloc countries of eastern Europe is among the most rapid of any region in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

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