RUSSIAN FEDERATION: A QUESTION OF ATTITUDE

摘要

According to the 2004 UNAIDS report, Russia is one of the countries where the epidemic is spreading the fastest. The number of new cases recorded in 2000 is almost twice the previous total since 1987. Yet the importance of the disease continues to be widely underestimated. Pavel doesn't really know how he contracted the HIV virus. It could have been when he was sharing needles in the metro underground with other addicts. Or during unprotected homosexual intercourse, the proceeds of which provided him with enough money to feed his addiction. Whichever it was, Pavel is a physical wreck. Unable to work, he lives on a meager government pension in a run-down apartment on the outskirts of Moscow and is struggling at age 22 to see his way forward to any sort of future.