- WARSAW (Sapa-AFP)-- An international
Aids conference warned on Wednesday of an explosion of Aids victims behind
the former Iron Curtain, unless people who are HIV positive there are given
the same treatment as those in the West.
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- "These countries will be confronted with a high
death rate in 10 years if the now HIV-infected patients don't get access
to treatment which is standardised in Western Europe," the European
Aids Conference said at the end of a five-day gathering here.
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- It pointed to a "dramatic situation in Eastern Europe".
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- The organisation, which brought 2,500 delegates from
51 countries to the Polish capital, said that of about two million people
who are HIV positive on the European continent, 1.2 million live in Russia
and Ukraine.
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- Professor Christine Katlama, of the Paris' Pitie-Salpetriere
hospital, said that with early treatment Aids could be delayed by many
years.
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- "We can consider today, that a patient seeking early
medical help, can retard the outbreak of Aids for decades," she said.
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- At a news conference, she urged governments to keep up
their information campaigns, stressing "safe sex is the only real
protection against the virus".
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- And she urged governments not to rest on their laurels
because of a declining number of infections.
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- "Ever decreasing numbers of infections should not
weaken efforts," she said. "This would lead to the fact that
people at high potential risk feel safe, drop their guard and seek treatment
too late."
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- Dr Mike Youle, who attended the conference from Britain,
said that "cure was more expensive than prevention".
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