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Global Fund Grant to Russia WiIl Boost Availability
of AIDS Drugs
The
number of Russian AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral
drugs will increase
ten-fold to 15,500 under a two-year project, the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said.
Prisoners, drug users
and sex workers will be
the major beneficiaries of a $34.2 million grant to Russia, approved
on Thursday, the Geneva-based fund said in a statement.
Currently
only 1,500 people in Russia, where about one million are living
with HIV/AIDS, receive antiretroviral drugs, according to the Fund
and United Nations health agencies.
"The
Global Fund grant will enable a ten-fold increase to 15,500 over
the first two years of the programme, rising to 75,000 in year five,"
it said, adding the grant could be extended to be worth $120.5 million
over a five-year period.
The
grant, its second to Russia for AIDS, aims to provide treatment
and support to infected prisoners, intravenous drugs users, commercial
sex workers, homosexuals and pregnant women
seeking to prevent mother-to-child
transmission of the virus.
"These
target populations are the focus of the grant as they represent
over 85 percent of diagnosed cases of HIV/AIDS in Russia,"
the fund said.
The
AIDS epidemic in Russia is driven by heterosexual transmission via
the country's two million to four million injecting drugs users,
who often also engage in commercial sex work, thereby acting as
a bridge to the general population, it said.
The
HIV seroprevalence rate in the Russian prison system is more than
two percent, or five times higher than in the general population,
it added. Russia has 870,000 prisoners, according to the fund.
The
Global Fund, a public-private partnership, was set up in 2002 to
fight the three diseases that kill six million people a year.
6/13/05
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