AIDS orphans in Russia face bias, caregivers say
UST IZHORA, Russia -- An hour's drive from St. Petersburg, in the leafy suburbs of this satellite town, Dr. Yevgeny Voronin battles a deep prejudice.
In the dormitory for 30 in-patients at the Republican Hospital for Infectious Diseases, of which Voronin is director, 6-year-old Dasha and a group of her friends play together with building blocks. They are healthy and well cared for, but every child in the facility is an HIV orphan, abandoned by their parents.
In the past decade, about 21,000 children were born to HIV-positive mothers in Russia. Of those, about 10 percent were abandoned, and just five of them have been adopted, according to government data.
St. Petersburg has the highest registered number of HIV cases of any region in the country. President Vladimir Putin gave a big boost to fighting the disease last year when he increased the 2006 national budget for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment twentyfold, to $105 million.
But while faster diagnosis is now being introduced in some hospitals, many abandoned children live in isolation wards for the first 18 months of their lives, until HIV can be diagnosed using outdated tests.
``We've had kids coming to us with faces like masks, completely without emotion, because they've been kept in tiny rooms with practically no human contact," Voronin said. ``Physically, they are OK. But mentally, they're damaged for life."
Ignorance about HIV remains widespread, even among health professionals, says head tutor Irina Yakovleva. When the hospital called to arrange a meeting at St. Petersburg's medical-pedagogical commission to get permission for the orphans to attend schools, she says, they were told to come outside regular hours and ``don't let them sit on the benches."
A survey by the Moscow-based Focus Media Foundation last year suggested that 60 percent of people believed that they could get the virus if they ate in a restaurant with an HIV-positive waiter and 56 percent thought that it could be acquired by kissing.
The foundation's director, Yevgenia Alexeeva, says that the state has failed to oblige state-owned television channels to run public service advertising that could remedy ignorance and prejudice.
Alexander Rumyantsev, head of Delo, an organization that assists people with HIV, says another problem is the haphazard provision of antiretroviral drugs for adults.
About 40 people in the Leningrad region, which surrounds St. Petersburg, recently started the therapy but it was stopped abruptly when the state said it had no more drugs, even though city authorities housed in the same building allegedly have excess doses.
``We're talking about a total bureaucratic mess, and people are dying because of it," Rumyantsev said.
The federal government admits it has made mistakes, but says the problems are being ironed out by Putin's funding increase. In addition to providing more money for antiretroviral treatment and support groups, it is expected to provide extra cash for education campaigns to reduce stigmatization of people with HIV.
``It's a long road, but they're finally making some first steps to break down the prejudice," Voronin said. 