It was reported by Interfax. Earlier the head of the Moscow City Center for Preventing and Fighting AIDS Alexei Mazus told the journalists that with regard to HIV the Russia’s capital remained “one of the world’s less infected capitals”. According to him, his staff detects around 3,000 new HIV infections every year in the nearly 20-million-strong city.
‘I wouldn’t say that the situation in Moscow is positive, I’d say it is less explored because a large part or even half of HIV infections are detected among people who are not registered in Moscow. We don’t know if they are still here or have already gone,’ academician Pokrovsky replied.
According to him, which is also reported by Interfax, the survey in Moscow detected 90,000 HIV infections, half of them among “non-residents of Moscow”.
AIDS.CENTER reported earlier that among all regions Moscow remained the only one to have trouble with antiretroviral treatment availability. The reason for that is the regulations enacted by the Moscow City Health Care Department that do not allow people with no permanent Moscow registration to receive HIV medication.
At the same time most other regions require only temporary registration to sign up for a local AIDS center. The situation with medication for people from other cities in the capital has already created a lot of controversy.
A great number of HIV positive people living in Moscow still have to travel to their hometowns to get medication or even give up on treatment at all if they do not have enough money for such trips.
Considering the Moscow City Health Care Department intransigent policy, the Ministry of Health has recently promised to amend the regulations of medicine provision to HIV patients, which will allow them to receive a six-month supply of pills to reduce the number of their trips to a minimum.