Summary
Russia loses 30,000 working-age citizens annually to HIV, with 1.7 million total infections and nearly 500,000 deaths to date.
The epidemic strains the economy as treatment costs reach $670 million annually, compounded by shortages of antiretroviral drugs and gaps in early testing.
Heterosexual transmission now dominates, though marginalized groups like drug users, sex workers, and gay men remain disproportionately affected.
Reduced funding for HIV testing and inconsistent treatment availability hinder efforts to curb the epidemic, posing critical public health and economic challenges for Russia.
For comparison, in the US, annually, about 5,000 people die from HIV as the underlying cause, and another 8,000 die from HIV as a contributing cause. https://www.kff.org/hivaids/fact-sheet/the-hiv-aids-epidemic-in-the-united-states-the-basics/
The US has double the population as well…
And third world health care, mostly.
What? The healthcare is good the healthcare system is bad
You have an embarassed billionaire healthcare.
“It’s the best in the world! I just don’t have access to it right now. But once I do, you’ll see!” they say, trying to decide between bleeding to death and the ambulance.
If that isn’t an oxymoron, it’s as close as it gets.
A healthcare system not providing healthcare can’t be said to have good healthcare.
Just because SOME people receive good healthcare, doesn’t mean the healthcare is good overall or on average.
Maybe it could hypothetically be the case that the system is bad but the care is good overall, but that is certainly NOT the case regarding healthcare in USA.
It’s absolutely justified to say healthcare in USA is on the level of a third world country. Cheap rhetoric doesn’t change that.