Killer on the loose across Europe and United States

Date: 02/12/04

By Véronique Vallières

A RAPIDLY growing number of people inside the European Union's borders are infected with HIV.

According to a United Nations report on AIDS published last Tuesday (23 November), approximately two million people live with HIV in western and central Europe and North America.

The report warns that large numbers of HIV-infected people are unaware of their HIV-positive status and that there is “worrying evidence” of anti-retroviral resistance among some newly HIV-infected people in western Europe.

“The AIDS response still does not match the scale of the global epidemic,” the UN report concludes.

Dr Jens D. Lundgren, HIV clinician at the Hvidovre University Hospital in Denmark and coordinator of the EuroSIDA network, blames the growing numbers on insufficient resources and a lack of political will.

“First, there is not enough funding available for the potential of research to fully develop in Europe and, second, we need to have politicians talk about AIDS in Europe.

“Denial is a political modus operandi that is seen in many places in Europe. When will the issue be put on the European political agenda? It is fine and good to be focused on Africa, but why can't we fix our own problems first?

“We clearly need concerted action across the continent, as a society.”

• Around 64,000 new infections occurred in North America, western and central Europe in 2004. HIV infections increased by 122% in 1997-2002;
• the proportion of newly-infected women increased from 25% to 38% over the same period;
• whereas preceding years saw a decline in HIV diagnoses among homosexual men in western Europe, infections increased by 22% in 2001-02;
• up to 7% of female sex workers in the Netherlands are HIV-infected;
• between 15,000 and 32,000 people died of AIDS in western and central Europe and North America in 2004;
• new infections in eastern Europe (including non-EU member states such as Ukraine and Russia) increased by 40% in 2002-04. The number of people living with HIV has increased ninefold in less than ten years;
• at least 80% of Russia's 860,000 HIV-infected people are under 30 years of age.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) published its 2004 epidemic update in which it reports on the latest developments in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, 23 November 2004. It says that a rapidly growing number of people inside the European Union's borders were infected with HIV.

UNAIDS: December 2004 epidemic update http://www.unaids.org/wad2004/report_pdf.html

UNAIDS: Press release, 23.11.04 http://www.unaids.org/NetTools/Misc/DocInfo.aspx?LANG=en&href=http://gva-doc-owl/WEBcontent/Documents/pub/Media/Press-Releases02/PR_EpiLaunch_23Nov04_en.pdf

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