Penza, 22 October 2012. PenzaNews. For the first time in the past few years the Penza region has become one of the Russian regions experiencing the fastest growth rates of HIV. This was stated by the president of the community foundation for support of health and education “Anti-AIDS” Sergey Oleynik in an interview to news agency “PenzaNews.”

“In eight months of 2012, the amount of HIV cases registered in the region grew by 1,7 times compared to the same period of the last year. Such rated can indicate the outbreak of AIDS, which was observed in Kuznetsk in 2000–2001,” he explained.

According to Sergey Oleynik, at that time the situation was managed by strengthening prevention activities in HIV high-risk groups — among drug addicts and prostitutes.

“For several years our foundation has been working in the field of information. At first, we gave out clean, sterile syringes to drug addicts, then tried to convince them to replace injections with other ways of drug intake, and only then to give up drugs,” he explained.

Sergey Oleynik stressed that the “Anti-AIDS” foundation stopped its prevention work among drug addicts in 2011 due to lack of funding.

“Suspension of our work thanks to which HIV rate growth had been restrained for several years resulted in startling figures only in a few months,” he concluded.