09.11.2005 LEARN TO LIVE IN THE TIME OF AIDS

While scientists are working on the vaccine from the VHI AIDS has reached the 5-th place in the world among the cases of death.
The hidden threat.
Many people concider that AIDS will never concern them and their relatives. They think that VHI is a problem of foreign countres. There are many other problems in Russia besides it. Till 1996 in our country had only been documented about some hundreds cases of disease and nobody was especially worried about it.But in the last 3 or 4 years the infection has been spreading over the whole country extremely guickly. According to specialists forecasts the number of infected people will have reached the figure of 400 thousand by the end of this year. Nobody knows how many people among us are actually ill, because an infected person can live for many years (in average- for 2-3 years and even 5-7) before his immunity is completely destroyed. This is the very time when any infection can kill a man. This condition is calles AIDS. But during 3 years a person doesn ? t feel himself ill and doesn ? t even suspect his being terribly infected. He is able to infect a great number of people not realizing what he is doing. That ? s why the epidemic of AIDS is imperceptibly spreading into new territories generally taking hostage young people in the age of 15 to 30.
The death at the end of a needle.
In Karelia the first case of VHI was documented in 1995. Today 63 people are already registered in clinics. Among them are inhabitans of Kostomyksha, Suoyarvi, Pryazha and Petrozavodsk aged from 17 to 41 years old. They has been revealed in this year only.
The epidemy is generally spreading among drug-takers. In 2000 one of the main centres of infection in Karelia has became Kostomuksha. The reason of it is the rapidly growing number of drug-addicts in this town. According to the information of Ministry for Internal Affairs of the Karelian republic there are about 500 injecting drug-takers in Kostomuksha. The population of this town is about 35 thousand people. Today 27 inhabitans of Kostomuksha are VHI-infected. Among them 22 people have been infected while using one syringe for several times, the ofher 5 person have been infected during sexual contacts. The health to these young people cannot be refurned. And how many unknown germ-carriers are there in Kostomuksha? According to the same sourse there are about 7 thousands of regular drug-takers in the republica and not less than 1500 people take heroin. But only 383 of them are registered in a narcological prophylactic centre. From the begining of this year 75% cases of VHI-infection have taken place in Karelia as a result of drug-injection.
Sexual counter-revolution.
The intecfion is spreading not only drug-takers. From the 1995 18 people have paid with their health for their carelessnes. Besides, the number of the cases for all that diseases which ways of infecting are similiar to AIDS ? s ones is growing every year. Among the leaders in number of registered cases of diseases spreading during sexual contacts in Karelia are the towns of Segezha, Sortavala, Kostomuksha, Petrozavodsk, Pitkyaranta,
Suoyarvi, Kem, Belomorsk, Lahdenpohya. The lovers of sexual adventures in this towns ought to take care of their health as the chance of being infected is growing. It ? s just the time for sexual counter-revolution and the propaganda for the later begining of sexual life, the diminishing of the number of sexual partners and using condoms. According to the information of opinion polls 90% of young people know that they must use condoms but only 12% do it. The 50 per cents of men and 60 per cents of women don ? t want to spend money for contraception but change partners easyly without thinking about consequenses.
Being infected a future mother can give the virus to her child. In 1999 in one of the maternity houses of Petrozavodsk a woman from the Ukrain gave birth to a child. The mother left her baby and it stayed under medical observation in the specialized infection hospital of the AIDS- center of North-West region. Fortunately nowadays the child is absolutely healthy and the diagnosis of VHI-infection is cancelled.
More dangerous than all the wars.
It ? s unknown how many VHI-infected and people who have AIDS are there actually in Karelia. All examinations for AIDS are voluntary in this country. It ? s necessary to ensure confidence so not to scare people off because VHI-infected are avoided if they had leprosy. Especially in small towns, where such people become social outcasts. They may be fired from their jobs, not be served in shops, their children may not be taken to a
school and nobody will shake their hands. Though this dangerous virus does not spread in every day life.We will have to learn to live in the time of AIDS as every year the number of infected people will be growind and it ? s still inevitable. And now already every region of the republic has to have some services to help drug- takers and VHI-infected people in extreme cases, centres of reabilitation independently of social status and paying capacity of a sick-person. One month of treatment by modern medicines prolonging life of a pacient costs 1000 dollars. At a present time very few person can afford spend such a sum of money for medicines. Infortunately in this country nobody but you will take care of yourself. Meanwhile the problem of AIDS has to be considered in the goverment as after
10 years the expecting casualties of this disease will be much bigger than of all the wars. We are about to be late to take measures against the epidemy, which is spreading in a high speed in Russia as well as in Karelia.
Karelian regional department of Interregional youth social & charity organization "Youth Human Rights Group" (YHRG)