BBC News: Fighting HIV where no-one admits it’s a problem
“For years Russia has remained remarkably silent on the challenge it faces from HIV and AIDS. Now that silence has been broken by an epidemiologist who has been working in the field for more than two decades — and he calls the situation ‘a national catastrophe.’ Vadim Pokrovsky, the softly spoken head of the Federal AIDS Centre in Moscow, has watched as the figures have climbed remorselessly upwards. There are about one million people living with HIV today in Russia and year on year the rate of infection is rising, unlike sub-Saharan Africa where the rate of increase is slowing…” (Fowler, 5/20).