Associated Press - November 28, 2001
Mara D. Bellaby, Associated Press

The report was published Wednesday.

The combination of economic insecurity, high unemployment and deteriorating health services in the region are behind the steep rise, which shows no signs of abating, said U.N. officials, in Moscow to launch the report.

Worldwide, "HIV/AIDS is unequivocally the most devastating disease we have ever faced, and it will get worse before it gets better," Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS wrote in the report, which is updated annually ahead of World AIDS Day, held every Dec. 1.

In Russia, more than 75,000 new cases of HIV infection were reported by early November, compared to 56,000 new cases last year.

"That works out to about 10,000 new cases every month," said Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's first deputy health minister. "This is our reality... . It is a very serious problem."

Ukraine has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the region, with an estimated 1 percent of adults infected. In the small Baltic nation of Estonia, 1,112 new cases of HIV infection were recorded in the first nine months of this year, compared to only 12 in all of 1999, officials said.

The U.N. report said that in Eastern Europe, as in the rest of the world, AIDS affects a disproportionate number of young people. The main method of transmission in the former Soviet Union is through injecting drugs.

"It is a teenage epidemic - teenagers experimenting with drugs, teenagers experimenting with sex," Piot said.

Officials in Eastern Europe have blamed the epidemic's increase partly on the sudden opening of borders, the growth of organized crime and weakened social services following the collapse of communist rule a decade ago.

Many young people, bored and unsure about their future, turn to drugs or unprotected sexual encounters, officials said.

Since the first clinical evidence of AIDS appeared 20 years ago, more than 22 million people have died. AIDS is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been hit hardest by the epidemic.

This year, African nations will experience 3.4 million new infections and 2.3 million deaths - losses that not only drain national budgets but also put future generations at risk, depriving children of parents and local economies of their work force, officials said.

U.N. officials predicted that some of the most affected African nations could lose more than 20 percent of their GDP by 2020 because of AIDS.

The U.N. report said unsafe sex was on the rise in high-income countries such as the United States and some European nations, subsequently triggering a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.

"All the emphasis is put on treatment, which has had a major impact, but prevention has been neglected and education has been neglected," Piot said. "The price that we will have to pay for that neglect is very high."

The report found a bright spot in Cambodia, where prevention measures have had a significant impact, but officials also warned about the deteriorating situation in China and in the Caribbean, which continues to be the second most affected region in the world.

Last June, the U.N. General Assembly held a special session on HIV/AIDS, winning pledges from governments to pursue new preventive actions and contribute more funds to the fight. The United Nations estimates that about $10 billion will be needed every year to fight AIDS in low and middle-income countries.
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