[HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe epidemiology, prevention and control]

During recent years, in the eight countries of Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, The Czech-o-Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, USSR and Yugoslavia), the health situation has stagnated, or, in some areas, even deteriorated. The development trend of some common diseases and of risk factors emphasizes the uneven health development in Eastern Europe, and the increasing gap between health conditions in Eastern and Western Europe. The spread of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) started relatively late in Eastern Europe, but has recently increased markedly in several countries. Partly as a result of the rapidly changing social and economic conditions in Eastern European countries, a dynamic expansion of this epidemic is taking place, and a sharp increase in the number of people infected with HIV may be expected over the next years. Intensive cooperation between WHO and the individual countries in Eastern Europe has been initiated in the fields of health promotion and disease prevention. One element of this cooperation has been to produce comprehensive National Aids Control Programmes in all these countries. External support of the Aids Control Programmes in Eastern Europe can help to prevent a rapid development of the HIV epidemic, and, in addition, have a catalytic effect on the development of all aspects of the primary health service in these countries.