Is this Interfax report based on some bizarre misquote? I’ve only seen the quote carried by Interfax - no other news organisation has even hinted at this story.
Yushchenko said that, in five years, the number of AIDS-infected people will increased 2.5 times and reach a mortality rate of 26 infected per 100,000 citizens.
“The rates at which the disease is spreading are awful. If the rates remain constant, then Ukraine will loose 10% of its population by 2010,” Yuschenko said at the all-Ukrainian meeting of family physicians in Kharkiv.
Now, I’d never class myself as a mathematician, but I must say I’m somewhat puzzled as to how a mortality rate of 0.01% equates to the death of one in 10 Ukrainains within the next 5 years.
I guess today must be “We hate Ukrainians Because They Are All Diseased Scum Day” over at the Interfax office.
October 27th, 2005 at 6:00 am
President Yushchenko sounds alarm on AIDS crisis
Oct 26 2005, 22:48
© Bob
President Viktor Yushchenko, center, speaks in Kharkiv on Oct. 25 at a meeting of Ukrainian general practitioners. Yushchenko used the forum to raise awareness about the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus in Ukraine.
President Viktor Yushchenko on Oct. 25 said that the rate at which HIV/AIDS is spreading in the country has reached a “frightening” level and that the situation requires immediate reform of the public health care sector.
Yushchenko said that the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS is expected to double in the next five years and reach a mortality rate of 26 infected persons per 100,000 citizens.
“The rates at which the disease is spreading are awful. If they remain constant, Ukraine will lose 10 percent of its population by 2010,” said the president, who promised to begin reforming the health care sector in early 2006.
Ukraine is burdened by one the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in Europe, with an estimated 360,000 people infected, according to the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which has repeatedly called on Ukraine’s top officials to take action.
The lack of political will for rapid implementation of health reforms and “politicians’ propensity toward grand but unworkable declarations” are among the main causes for the slow pace of health care reform, according to a comprehensive study of Ukraine’s health care problems.
The 130-page report, titled “Health Care systems in Transition: Ukraine,” was commissioned by a partnership between the World Health Organization, several EU governments, the London School of Economics, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicines.