But even though the number of new HIV infections in Russia jumped 10 percent over 2011, health workers and global HIV authorities say Moscow has not honored that promise [to fund harm-reduction programs].
This is not due to a lack of cash - Russia is doubling its budget for HIV in 2012 from 2010 levels. At issue is how it will use the funds. From next year, no money will go to such internationally recognized efforts as needle exchanges. None has ever gone to heroin substitution: the Russian authorities oppose it. Moscow doesn't believe these approaches help slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"Working on drug dependency is more effective than needle exchange and methadone programs," said Alexei Mazus, who heads the Moscow Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention, one of around 100 such venues across the country run by the health ministry.
In areas where needle exchanges have taken place, he said the health ministry had seen new HIV cases increase, not fall. Russia's health ministry said last year it had evidence that HIV rates have tripled in areas where foreign-run needle exchange programs were running.
The United Nations says so-called "harm reduction" programs - needle exchanges, and using methadone as a substitute for heroin - are effective in slowing the spread of HIV. Methadone reduces the risk of infection by dirty needles because it can be swallowed, rather than injected.
A major WHO study found HIV rates fell more than 18 percent in cities with needle exchanges, while they rose 8 percent in areas that did not have them. The British and U.S. governments both approved needle exchanges in recent drug policies drafted to combat HIV. But in Russia's drug strategy for 2010-20, heroin substitutes are banned.
Projects such as giving drug users and sex workers clean needles, HIV awareness training and medication have been funded by the United Nations in Russia for the last seven years. Next year that funding comes to an end and with it, so will most of these schemes.
Some health workers and global HIV authorities are angered and baffled by Russia's approach, which they say will only aggravate the problem.
"When a few programs were funded and running it was then difficult to see how things could get worse. Now we know," Damon Barrett, a senior human rights analyst at Harm Reduction International in London, told Reuters.
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