Hartsock P, Kozlov A, Glebov A, Malykh A; International Conference on AIDS.
Int Conf AIDS. 1993 Jun 6-11; 9: 682 (abstract no. PO-C09-2793).
Clinical Medicine Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Rockville, MD.
ISSUE/PROBLEM: The transition of the Soviet Union into independent republics has been accompanied with an increase in substance abuse. International cooperation has been undertaken to assist the former USSR in analyzing the association of substance abuse with AIDS. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT: Since its inception in 1986, NIDA's Clinical Medicine Branch (CMB) has been cooperating with researchers in the former USSR and monitoring the course and interrelationship of substance abuse and AIDS in Russia and the other ex-Soviet republics. CMB is cooperating with the Bruce Rappaport Center for Biomedical Research in St. Petersburg in analyzing data produced by the Rappaport Center's HIV testing approximately 4 million out of St. Petersburg's total population of 5 million. Several hundred injecting drug users (IDU's) were studied in the course of this screening program. RESULTS: Selected findings of interest from this cooperative analysis include the near total absence of IDU's among persons infected with HIV in St. Petersburg. This may have to do with St. Petersburg's overall low rate of HIV as compared with adjacent parts of Eastern Europe such as Poland and/or the possibility of containment factors operating (e.g., social/behavioral differences; different immune responses to retroviral infection and differences in the structure of the retrovirus itself; lag time in the spread of HIV geographically and demographically). LESSONS LEARNED: Interesting questions have been raised as to why patterns of HIV infection in St. Petersburg do not parallel patterns in Eastern Europe. Both social/behavioral and biological factors need to analyzed in further depth to elucidate these patterns and their possible implications for AIDS control.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Europe, Eastern
- HIV Infections
- HIV Seropositivity
- Poland
- Research
- Russia
- Substance-Related Disorders
- USSR
Other ID:
UI: 102206091
From Meeting Abstracts