Abstract
SUMMARY POINTS
-- Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to look after all its citizens. Alcohol misusers and homeless and elderly people fight to survive.
-- A recent problem is the rapid rise in the number of injecting drug misusers. In Moscow an estimated 100 000 users form an important core group for HIV transmission.
-- With the health system in a state of collapse and sexually transmitted diseases on the rise, all the ingredients for a HIV epidemic are present. By the turn of the century the Ministry of Health forecasts there will be 800 000 people who are HIV positive.
-- Médecins Sans Frontières has started an HIV prevention campaign in cooperation with the government.
