Canadian Prime Minister, Russian Officials Announce Joint Three-Year HIV Prevention Program in Russia
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, on a four-day visit to Russia, and two of Russia's major health experts on Friday announced the launch of a joint three-year HIV prevention program in four regions of the country, the Associated Press reports (Ingram, Associated Press, 2/15). The programs, which will include training for regional officers, the implementation of prevention projects and the establishment of networks between the government and non-governmental agencies, will operate in Krasnoyarsk and Altai in Siberia, Saratov in the Volga region and Tver in northwestern Russia (Agence France-Presse, 2/15). In addition, the project will advise Russian agencies on how to spend their "severely limited" resources and lobby Russian politicians to make HIV/AIDS a priority (McCarthy, Globe and Mail, 2/18). Chretien, along with Vadim Pokrovsky, Russia's preeminent AIDS expert, and Gennady Onishchenko, the nation's top public health official, visited an AIDS research center, where Chretien pledged that Canada would "guarantee Russia had resources to combat" the spread of HIV. Pokrovsky said that although only 182,000 cases of HIV have been reported since 1987, the actual number of HIV-positive people could be closer to one million. Chretien and a delegation of 300 Canadian officials were in Russia to finalize $2 billion in business contracts between the two nations (Associated Press, 2/15).
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