AIDS Adds Sting to Afghanistan Misery

From the Chicago Tribune - August 5, 2008

In a nation already suffering from plagues both natural and man-made, the rising prevalence of HIV—exacerbated by ignorance and drug addiction—threatens to become an epidemic

By Kim Barker |Tribune correspondent

KABUL, Afghanistan — The man, thin as a coat rack, said he started shooting heroin because a friend told him it was easier to quit the needle than to stop smoking the drug. His friend died, and now the young man is dying too.

The addict is 28, but sharp cheekbones and tiny wrinkles around his lips make him look much older. His is the face of AIDS in Afghanistan, a conservative Islamic country that has been reluctant to acknowledge the problem the disease poses.

A former refugee in Iran, he said he tested positive in March and already has full-blown AIDS. His fate is fairly certain. There is no treatment for AIDS in Afghanistan yet.

"Life is just passing, one day starving, one day a full stomach," he said, crying and wiping his eyes where he sleeps on the floor of the bombed-out grounds of the Russian cultural center, now home to as many as 1,000 itinerant drug addicts. He did not want to be identified because of the shame associated with the disease here.

Article continued on the HIV/AIDS and Islam Blog - http://hivandislam.blogspot.com