The former Soviet Union and its neighbors are the only places in the world where the HIV epidemic is growing, mainly because of discrimination against infected children and drug users, according to a new United Nations report.
The number of HIV-infected people in Central Asia and Eastern Europe has increased by 66 percent to 1.5 million people since 2001, UNICEF said in the report published on its web site.
About 1.8 million people inject drugs in Russia, and 80 percent of them are under 30, the report said.
One of the main problems in Russia is that young people with HIV find themselves separated from society, said Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF's representative for Russia.
"HIV-positive children are often denied access to schools and kindergartens, while they need more support," he said in an interview Tuesday. "We need to change the environment to improve the situation."
Five Russian regions have seen the number of HIV-infected people skyrocket by 700 percent since 2006, the report said, without specifying the regions.
In Russia and Ukraine, 6 percent to 10 percent of children born to HIV-positive mothers are abandoned in maternity wards, hospitals and residential institutions, with practically no chance for foster care, the report said.
But a study of HIV-infected mothers, their families and health-care workers from four regions in Russia showed that the disease itself was not the main reason for abandonment.
Children are abandoned because of "unwanted pregnancy, poverty, lack of family support, drug and alcohol use, fear of the infant having birth defects or disabilities, and an inability to support the costs of care," the report said.
Some women are persuaded to give up their newborn children by their own families or by doctors, the report said.
The Federal Drug Control Service puts the number of drug users in Russia at about 2.5 million, with 30,000 dying each year of drug-related causes.
Russia maintains tough policies for drug users, with the country's top public doctor, Gennady Onishchenko, repeatedly proclaiming that the country will never adopt “foreign ideas” like methadone treatment, which is widely used in Western countries to help drug users quit.