There it smells of virus

Rospotrebnadzor will carry out mass testing of homosexuals and prostitutes in Russia on HIV, Izvestia reports with reference to the initiator of the project - the head of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for the prevention and combat of AIDS Academician Vadim Pokrovsky. This will be the first state study of this kind in Russia. As expected, it will begin in 2014.

Pokrovsky estimated the cost of the project at several million rubles. It is supposed to make a sample like used in sociological research and distribute testing by regions. The district centers of Rospotrebnadzor will organize work.

According to Pokrovsky, today about 600 thousand HIV-infected citizens are registered in Russia. Moreover, in 2012, their number increased by 70 thousand people. The total number of infected, taking into account undiagnosed cases, doctors estimate at 1.2-1.3 million people. Now every 20th Russian man aged about 30 years is a carrier of HIV infection, Pokrovsky noted.

The academician added that in 2013, Russia overtook the United States in the number of HIV carriers, although the population of the United States is more than two times higher than in Russia.

Pokrovsky explained this situation with a decrease in financing allocated to preventive measures. “Last year, 400 million rubles were allocated for training in a relatively safe way to administer drugs, etc., this year it was 200 million,” he remarked. As the academician suggests, "the budget was reduced due to current ideological reasons."