Russia’s ban on methadone for drug users in Crimea will worsen the HIV/AIDS epidemic and risk public health

Injecting drug use drives the huge HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region, but Russian law does not permit the substitution treatment that is shown to help. The end of its provision on 1 May will have huge repercussions, says Michel Kazatchkine.

Ten years ago 170 000 people in the Russian Federation had HIV.The estimated number is now 1.2 million.More than 2% of men aged 30-35 are infected, says Vadim Pokrovsky, the head of the Russian Federal AIDS Centre. Russia now accounts for over 55% of all new HIV infections reported in the European region.

This epidemic was mainly caused by injecting drug use, but it is now spreading to the general community. And it could have been avoided if Russia had implemented large scale harm reduction programmes including opioid substitution therapy (OST).

Treatment with methadone or buprenorphine and the provision of clean needles have saved the lives of millions of injecting drug users worldwide in the past 30 years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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