Chicago Tribune (CT) - MONDAY, December 16, 1996 Edition: NORTH SPORTS FINAL Section: NEWS Page: 8 Word Count: 1,163
Uli Schmetzer, Tribune Staff Writer.

Usually home-brewed, a tacitly accepted narcotic derived from poppy seeds sets off fears of epidemic after tainted needles from outside sellers spread HIV.

TEXT:

SVETLAGORSK, Belarus - The locals call the opiate "black" and brew it on their kitchen stoves.

Its base is poppy seeds, fresh in summer, dehydrated in winter, grown in back yards. The ingredients include a pinch of baking powder, some solvent, crushed painkiller pills and anything else the cooks decide to toss into a pot that must boil 40 minutes.

Every tar-colored new concoction is tried out first on an eager rookie. "If he doesn't keel over, we'll all inject it," said Vladimir, an addict of black.

In a city built over isolated flatlands three decades ago as a model for rural Soviet planning, a shot of the opiate can send a user into a dreamland far away from boredom and unemployment amid a concrete maze of prefab highrises.

But none here could imagine that a tacitly tolerated habit could turn into a killer that today threatens up to 1 in 10 adults with the chilling prospect of developing AIDS.

"We have an AIDS epidemic in Svetlagorsk," Deputy Mayor Viktor Zviagin admits.

The city's AIDS statistics are frightening. The first four carriers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, were discovered in June. But by last week 1,303 locals had tested positive for HIV from a total of just over 13,000 blood tests.

United Nations experts and doctors believe half the city's estimated 7,000 junkies may have the virus. They could infect 1 in 10 to 1 in 15 residents among a population of 72,000 if dramatic control measures are not implemented at once, the experts say.

The outbreak in Svetlagorsk is part of an AIDS scourge spreading rapidly through communities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, where cash-strapped governments have no funds for awareness and prevention programs.

World Health Organization experts believe the virus is spreading along drug routes from Ukraine's Black Sea coast. Ukraine has registered 8,320 HIV cases since 1994.

The drugs move north into Russia, where Moscow's Health Ministry statistics show 1,500 HIV cases since 1987, 400 of them this year, a figure considered well below reality.

Moving north the drug route crosses Svetlagorsk on its way to Minsk and from there to Poland and Lithuania. In Minsk health authorities still claim a national figure of "just over 700" cases, but 600 of them this year alone.

Nowhere has the epidemic struck as savagely as in Svetlagorsk. "We knew for years the young people were shooting up. But apart from a few cases of hepatitis or what the locals call 'the yellows,' we had no real problems as long as it was brewed locally," said Dr. Valentin Pilipenko, chief of the city's Narcological Laboratory.

The virus apparently came in January this year with a batch of alien drug peddlers, allegedly from Ukraine. They brought into town their own ready-to-shoot version of black, marketed for $1.30 a dose with a syringe thrown in gratis. It sold like pancakes.

"We traced the virus back to those syringes. They were used syringes and infected. Worse, our locals were sharing them," said Dr. Pilipenko. "If the dose was short, they'd add someone's blood to stretch it, and everyone would inject it. That's how the virus spread so rapidly."

Discovery was by a fluke when a local drug addict and his wife decided to kick the habit and enter a rehabilitation center in Minsk. There an obligatory blood test found both were HIV carriers. It sounded the alarm bells in Svetlagorsk.

News of the virus initially caused panic among residents. It also turned the city into a regional pariah, a place with the plague.

"If you come from Svetlagorsk, the police want to see your AIDS-free certificate. Universities won't enroll you without a blood test, and people are scared you might breath on them," said Olga, a young waitress.

She and all those working in the food and medical industries have had AIDS tests ordered by the municipal authorities. Olga had her ID card stamped "AIDS-cleared" and is allowed to continue her job as a waitress.

The first targets were the addicts. Police even used firemen's ladders to raid drug dens and drag the users into the laboratory for testing.

"We didn't concern ourselves with the human rights violations. We needed a picture of the problem, and quick," Zviagin said.

He has won national praise for the open way in which he treated the problem. His office quickly issued leaflets explaining the virus and how to minimize infection. It organized seminars and pleaded for help.

So far only Israel has sent syringes--26,000 of them--but they are too small for administering doses of black. The staff of the German Embassy in Minsk has collected $3,000, and the UN has promised to supply condoms to the local addicts for a year.

Zviagin also refused police and public demands to arrest and isolate those infected with the virus, arguing it would drive the potential carriers underground. He felt it was best to work with them and prevent the spread by giving addicts clean syringes, disinfectants and condoms free of charge.

It was an enlightened attitude in a country barely freed from Soviet totalitarianism. Some people in Svetlagorsk were already calling for the execution of infected addicts. Others wanted to leave town.

"In the end only very few left," says Zviagin. "Where would they go? There is a shortage of jobs and housing all over Belarus. Its not easy to sink new roots here."

Despite good will, bureaucracy still moves slowly and clumsily. Of the 1,303 people who tested positive, Zviagin admits only "about 100" have been informed they carry the virus. It means 1,200 HIV carriers walk around without knowing they are infected.

A special medical commission that comes from Minsk once every few weeks is the only one authorized to break the bad news and ensure the virus carriers sign a document that warns them they can be jailed for five years if they knowingly pass on their infection.

"The process takes time," the deputy mayor said. "The police have to find the one who tested positive and bring him in, if necessary by force, to the commission. Some of these people have changed their addresses or given false addresses. The commission can only do a few at a time."

In a nation long accustomed to calamities, Svetlagorsk has learned to live with its problem. Its people were encouraged to be charitable by a medical warning at a municipal seminar: "If you treat the addicts like outcasts, those infected might practice terrorist revenge by leaving their blood on stairwells and banisters."

The AIDS scare hasn't discouraged addicts.

Vladimir, the pale junkie with the blackened teeth, still loiters around the city's central park for his daily fix.

"Ah, the panic is over," he said. "Still, I must admit, there is very little sex going on in town these days."

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