AIDS ON CRIMEAN SEAFRONT

(Moscow News)
Ukrainian health authorities report that an increasing number of patients are visiting doctors after jabbing themselves with abandoned syringes on beaches in the Crimea and one boy has contracted HIV, the cry.ru website reported on Tuesday.

An epidemiologist from the Ukrainian Republican Center for AIDS Prevention and Therapy, Yelena Druchinina, said that the boy was receiving anti-retrovirus therapy. He was infected after jabbing himself with a syringe that had been used by a HIV-infected drug user, the doctor said.

The doctor also said that they give anti-retrovirus therapy to all patients that address them after similar injuries without waiting for test results from the syringes.

She said that two people visited the center last week after such incidents.

According to the latest statistics, the Crimea peninsula, Ukraine’s major sea resort, has 5,313 registered HIV carriers. 116 people died of AIDS in Crimea in 2005.