MOSCOW, Nov 26 (AFP) - Over 260,000 Russians are infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, the Interfax news agency reported late Tuesday, quoting figures from the United Nations' Moscow office.
"The loss of young, working, people (caused by the epidemic) is a national security problem" for Russia, as the country already suffers an acute demographic crisis, Interfax quoted un unidentified UN official as saying.
Seventy percent of all HIV-positive Russians are aged 15-29, the official added.
A top Russian health official said Monday that the number of HIV-positive Russians has increased nearly ten-fold during the past three years.
"Only 20 per 100,000 Russians were HIV-positive in early 2000 and the rate has increased by nearly 10 times to 180 per 100,000 by November 2003," said Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the federal center to fight HIV/AIDS.
Official Russian figures say there are 238,000 HIV-positive Russians.
However, Pokrovsky said in May that up to 1.5 million Russians may have the HIV virus.
He said that some experts in his department estimate that deaths from AIDS may become as numerous as those from car accidents in Russia within a few years.
Experts have long said that Russia has one of the world's fastest growing HIV contamination rates, together with China and India.
About 90 percent of all HIV infections in the country result from drug users sharing needles, experts say.
The situation is also serious in the neighboring former Soviet republic of Belarus, where an official with the National Center for AIDS Prevention told AFP there were 5,277 HIV-positive people, or over 53 per 100,000 Belarus citizens.
The rise in the number of children born HIV-positive was particularly worrying, the official added.
While 51 children were born with the HIV virus in 2000, there were 82 in 2002, and 64 just in the first nine months of this year, he said.
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