Condoms to blame for Russia’s HIV epidemic Putin-backed study controversially claims… as ‘health experts’ say only heterosexual families can escape disease
In 2015, 93,000 people contracted the disease, raising Russia's number of HIV-positive people to 1 million
CONDOMS have caused an HIV crisis in Russia, according to a study backed by Putin’s government.
Scientists have said that the only way to protect from the disease is to remain in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship.
The Kremlin-backed study was done by the Russian Institute for Strategic Research.
The group’s findings were presented at a special meeting of the Moscow City Duma, a regional part of the Russian parliament.
Co-author Igor Beloborodov said: “The contraceptive industry is interested in selling their products and encouraging under-aged people to engage in sex.”
He said that people should “be in a heterosexual family where both partners are loyal to each other.”
The institute’s deputy director Tatyana Guzenkova said that there was a Western and a Russian way to deal with the disease.
She said that by using Russian “conservative ideology and traditional values”, HIV could be eradicated.
The institute’s findings come a year after the Federal Centre for Fighting AIDS branded Russia’s HIV epidemic a “catastrophe”.
In 2015 alone, Russia had 93,000 new cases of HIV.
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There are now one million HIV-positive diagnoses in the Eurasian country.
It is feared that there could be as many as 2 million HIV-positive people in Russia by 2019.
Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Russian state AIDs centre has said that the disease has spread because of Russia’s anti-LGBT stance.
He said that the influence of the Orthodox Church has also helped to spread HIV.
The church advises people not to wear condoms and Pokrovsky says there’s a general lack of sex education.
The disease is stigmatised because of Russia’s conservative attitude towards those in the LGBT community.
In 2012, politician Vitaly Milonov wrote a law banning ‘homosexual propaganda’ in St Petersburg.
The law helped Putin to pass legislation banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” in 2013.
The legislation, promoted by Milonov, criminalised the spreading of information about LGBT issues.
It is thought that this law has also increased sexual violence against gay people.
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