& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Injecting death

By Sergei Shargorodsky Odessa. Ukraine
THE dim room with Iron bars on the windows reeks of sickness, unwashed laundry and medicine. Oleksandr's bed is In a corner. Clutching a blanket around his emaciated body, he knows he is dying.
“What is there to say. I was injecting drugs." he mutters, too weak to show emotion. "Maybe I’ll kick off in three days."
Oleksandr, a former soldier in his 30s, Is one of about two dozen AIDS patients at the desolate clinic in Odessa, a Black Sea port at the heart of the AIDS epidemic sweeping across Ukraine.
Beset by poverty and collapsed social and medical systems. the former Soviet Union is one of the areas where the disease is growing at the fastest rate, the United Nations says. Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states are ill prepared to cope, lacking the money and some-Jinie^ y^eji Qx-AKJIIingH.ess to tackle the problem, officials say.
Health officials say the AIDS virus is spreading faster among Ukraine's 50 million people than in any other former Soviet republic. Up to 250.000 Ukrainians may be Infected now. and there could be 1.5 million cases by 2010. experts estimate.
“The way in which the disease has evolved in this country was exceptionally rapid," said Theresa Ho of the World Bank's Tuberculosis and AIDS Control Project mission.
Ukraine registered its first HIV case in 1987 and had only about 400 cases in 1994. The case load soared to 31.360 this year Russia, with three times as many people, has registered
about the same number of HIV patients.
Doctors say the mid-1990s surge of HIV infections began among intravenous drug users, who often share infected needles. Although addicts still comprise about 75 per cent of Ukraine's AIDS cases, the virus is spreading to the general population.
"We've had (infections) among university teachers, artists, conservatory graduates, medical workers." said Oleksandr Sydiachenko. head of Odessa region s department for infectious diseases.
Most of the patients of Odessa's AIDS clinic are addicts. A former centre for forced treatment of sexual diseases among criminals, it still has barred windows, a surrounding wall and an empty guard tower.
Doctors try to prolong patients' lives, treating an assortment of AIDS-accompanying diseases including mycosis and pneumonia.
"We don't tell them they have full-blown AIDS. We say ..Lhelr^couditiou laJpru/heJcfel of AIDS'." said Anatoliy Ptash-nykov. head of the clinic.
Walking through the bleak rooms, he points to a barely conscious woman spread on a bed. describing her as a lawyer who took to drinking and contracted the AIDS virus from a casual sex partner.
Liudmyla. a quiet, pretty 19-year-old, said she started to use drugs when she was 14. Doctors discovered her HIV infection when she was treated for syphilis.
Larysa and Tetiana. both former nurses, also were addicts.
"For three years, me and my husband were buying the drugs from Gypsies." Larysa said. "My husband made me use drugs.
and 1 lost my Job because of him. Later, he started to bring home bags of poppy straw. He has HIV as well. They put him In Jail, and I also did my time for drug usage."
Poppy straw, from which addicts obtain an opium derivative. is a recurrent theme in the patients' tales.
So Is Palermo, a mostly Gypsy village near Odessa. Officials describe Palermo as a drug production centre, saying addicts are often used as virtual slave labour in return for drug
"The slave, he'd go into the bowl (of drugs) with a dirty needle. and that's it." said Larysa.
There are other temptations besides drugs in free wheeling Odessa.
At night, dozens of prostitutes parade on downtown Pushkinskaya street charging 50 US dollars (about 270 hryvna) for three hours of sex. Most use condoms, but others who sell themselves for a few dollars on the highways are far less careful.
Odessa established JJkraupe s QssUALDSiXentre and has pioneered various prevention programmes, among them widespread testing now obligatory for pregnant women, blood donors and anyone with AIDS symptoms.
Although people infected with HIV are required by law to undergo treatment. Ukraine cannot afford the annual cost of 5.000 US dollars (about 27.000 hryvna) required for treating one patient in an effort to postpone the onset of AIDS.
So officials are moving from medical control to educational campaigns, saying people must take responsibility for their own fate.
"Every person must protect himself on his own," said Sydiachenko.
— AP