If ever anyone wanted to see the victory that is the restoration of capitalist into the Eastern Block, they need look no further than the HIV epidemic that is sweeping across Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Unicef published a report in July detailing the rapid spread of HIV that is increasing faster than anywhere else in the world. The major spread is among children and adolescents. The UN estimates that there are 1.5 million HIV-infected people in Eastern Europe. They also stated that particular areas of Russia have seen an increase in infections of over 700 percent from 2006 to today. In fact 90 percent of all HIV infected people in Eastern Europe are in Russia and Ukraine.

The worst affected are poverty stricken children, drug addicts, street kids and underage prostitutes.

Reinhard Kurth, who heads the Berlin Robert Koch Institute said this:
“The spread of HIV started in the mid-90s in the Ukraine and Belarus”.

The spread of the virus is directly caused by the destruction of the health system and social infrastructure carried out at the beginning of the 1990s in the name of the free market.

Dr. Wolfgang Luster of the Austrian foreign ministry said:

“Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were low endemic regions for HIV. It seemed as if the global HIV/AIDS epidemic had spared this geographical region.

“With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a profound transformation took place in the structures in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Despite the heterogeneity of the regions, many similarities can be observed in all the countries concerned.

Many countries have seen dramatic changes in their public health systems. Frequently, the level of staffing is insufficient or staff are not paid. Investment and preventative measures are often inadequate or do not take place. Privatisation of the public health system has often led to two-tier health care, where part of the population are no longer adequately covered.”

The lack of basic health care is inflaming the problem. The general disregard of children both in and out of state care shows the absolute cold blooded attitude toward human life the capitalist system has.