LANGLEY, Va., Sept 30 (Reuters) - The spread of HIV/AIDS could
triple the number of cases in Russia, China, India, Nigeria and Ethiopia
by 2010, eclipsing the number in central and southern Africa, which is
the current epicenter of the epidemic, a new U.S. intelligence report said
on Monday. The number of infected people in the five countries analyzed
will grow to an estimated 50 million to 75 million by the end of the decade,
from about 14 million to 23 million now, the National Intelligence Council
said inits report. Those countries are at an earlier stage than central
and southern Africa, where HIV/AIDS cases were expected to grow to between
30 million and 35 million by 2010 from about 25 million to 27 million now,
according to the report, "The Next Wave of HIV/AIDS: Nigeria, Ethiopia,
Russia, India, and China." "These projections aren't destiny. But this
is what in our view is a realistic judgment of what is threatening to occur
in these countries," said David Gordon, former national intelligence officer
for economics and global issues.
"The oft-expressed mindset of looking at AIDS as an African problem
... will increasingly be at odds with the reality of the disease," he told
reporters at CIA headquarters.
The estimates were not worst-case scenarios and carried an assumption
that the governments would take some, although not dramatic, action to
contain the disease. The report was made available to each of the five
governments. The UN agency UNAIDS also has statistics, but relies on official
government tallies that experts believe sometimes
understate the problem, while the intelligence estimates "go beyond official
statistics" and include assessments of academics and non-governmental organizations,
the report said. The countries were chosen because of their strategic importance
to the United States, and collectively were expected to have the highest
numberof cases in the world by 2010.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is the most advanced in Nigeria and Ethiopia,
where a higher percentage of the adult population was infected than in
Russia, China and India.
India was projected to have the highest number of cases at 20 million
to 25 million by 2010, while Russia was estimated to have the smallest
at 5 million to 8 million.
DISEASE SPREAD
The disease was spread in Russia mainly by "rampant and rising"
intravenous drug use, was a growing problem in the military services, and
posed a challenge to a country already facing negative population growth,
the report said. "What we highlight here is that AIDS is going to be a
challenge for Russia. Is it going to provide a direct challenge to the
U.S.-Russian relationship?
That's not what we're saying," Gordon
said. "But it's going to be an important issue in Russia, will shape Russia's
re-emergence, and will be a constraint in some sense to that re-emergence."
In China, projected to have 10 million to 15 million HIV/AIDS cases
by 2010, the disease was linked to blood plasma selling in rural areas,
drug use in southern regions adjacent to Southeast Asia's "Golden Triangle"
of heroin production, and the movement of an estimated 100 million rural
migrants relocating to cities for work, the report said. China has also
begun to acknowledge the significance of the AIDS problem more than even
18 months ago, Gordon said.
In India, heterosexual transmission is the main source of infections,
and the country has high rates of tuberculosis, which may indicate undiagnosed
HIV/AIDS, the report said.
"We didn't see HIV/AIDS posing a fundamental threat through the end
ofthis decade to India and China's status of major regional players and
emerging powers on the global stage, but over a longer period of time if
the situation is not effectively dealt with, the impact could very well
grow," Gordon said.
The epidemic in Nigeria has advanced beyond high-risk groups into the
general population, and heterosexual transmission is the main way the HIV
virus is spread there.
Nigeria has significance for the United States because it is a major
contributor to peacekeeping operations in West Africa and an important
source of oil in a region that could become "a counterweight and balance"
to the Gulf, Gordon said.
Generally poor health from drought, malnutrition, limited health care,
and other diseases, has caused HIV to progress rapidly to AIDS in Ethiopia,
where the intelligence report predicts there will be 7 million to 10 million
cases by 2010.
In Ethiopia, civil war significantly contributed to the spread of the
disease as soldiers contracted it during the 1980s and then returned home
when it ended in 1991.
[похоже, что Вашингтон
относится к проблеме мякше, чем международные организации]
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