Kosovo: AIDS Fears

Doctors believe prostitution may account for the growing number of HIV cases in the protectorate.

A Ukrainian prostitute in Pristina went to her doctor last month complaining of a cold. It turned out she had AIDS - setting alarm bells ringing across Kosovo.

"She had had many contacts with Kosovar men," said Jusuf Dushaj, epidemiologist and the head of the National Institute for Public Health. "We are highly concerned."

The case is significant because doctors here have long suspected that the explosion in the number of prostitutes here since the 1999 conflict is responsible for the spread of HIV infection.

Health specialists have been unable to test prostitutes for the Aids virus because they have no authority to approach the illegal brothels they work for.

So far 43 people have been diagnosed with HIV in Kosovo - just over half of them have died. But the true scale of the problem could be much greater, according to Elviana Berani, spokesperson for the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, in the protectorate.

"Specialists say that for every person identified as HIV positive, there are at least 100 others who may have been infected," she said. "If we use this logic about 4,300 people could be infected in Kosovo. But, for the moment, there is no proof that such a formula applies here."

Identities of infected persons have been kept secret for fear of stirring up prejudice against their families. Prior to the prostitute being diagnosed last month, the only other victim named was a 13-year-old boy who caught AIDS from his parents, both of whom subsequently died.

Doctors say people in Kosovo don't like to say how they have contracted the virus - making it harder to cope with - but they strongly suspect that the infection is linked to the 140 bars and clubs where prostitutes operate.

Many of them are close to petrol stations where casual customers may stop off for a while and then quickly disappear. "We have closed down some 40 of these places in the past nine months but they soon reopen under another name," said Barry Fletcher, the UNMIK police spokesperson in Kosovo.

In addition to local men, international officials and western troops and law enforcement officers are believed to frequent the region's brothels. Not long ago, ten overseas policemen left Kosovo after being accused of using prostitutes.

The director general of the International Organisation for Migration, IOM, Brunson McKinley, said strenuous efforts should be made to address the problem. "I think, KFOR, UNMIK and the Kosovars themselves should do more to root it out," he said.

Also believed to be contributing to the rise in HIV infection is the fact that over the past few years Kosovars have travelled extensively abroad in search of work. "Some of them contracted the virus there," Berani said.

An International Day Against AIDS was held on December 1 when the Kosovo media sought to heighten public awareness of the dangers of unprotected sex. Their success was questionable. "Ask me about mines or automatic weapons and I can give all the answers," said Behar Ahmeti, a 20-year-old from Pristina. "But AIDS, I've only just started hearing about it."

His response is typical and illustrates the fact that despite efforts to draw attention to the problem, Kosovan society still does not recognise the serious risk posed by prostitution. "Nobody believes a brief sexual encounter can cost you your life," said Dedushaj.

My apologies again about the source but this story has horrific potential. It just goes to show how useless 'well meaning outsiders' are and if it is anything like the robust attempts to reign in the criminals, then there will be 15 rounds of misery to go through first. On the up side, at least the EU will be picking up the tab.

VRN

The parents of the boy were both raped by a Special Yugoslav Biological Warfare Unit called "AIDS SQUAD"!In that way AIDS was introduced into the innocent and virtueous Albanian population!The boy was raped too.

It was a anex (top secret) of the famous Serbian plan called "Horseshoe" for etnic cleansing of all of the 15 milion of Kosovo Albanians.It was known as a "Operation Horse d***".

And,remember folks,before Mighty Karla reveal all this in Hague,I was the first to tell you!

I know it's satire on your part, but let's just clarify for the record that the so-called "Horseshoe" was a badly mangeled amateurish Bulgarian-German intellgence plot using the Crotian dialect form of the Serbian word fr horseshoe -- podkova -- unaware of the fact that the real Serbian word for the horseshoe is podkovitsa.

They need to improve their Serbo-turbo crash courses in Serbian.

You have to know that germans are "Old School" so they have decided to coppy the Austria from 1914!Austrians,also,in order to "proove" that Serbian Government is behind Sarajevo Assasination published a fake documents ,allegedly,implying that Serbian Military ordered the assasination!But,the language and the style was so amateurish that even Chechs saw that the writer was not a native Serbian speaker,let allone Serbian general!

They coppied the idea and hired the same "language expert"!

Now,I am serious again!

This is an impending catastrophe for the Albanian people!As a doctor and as a man who knows Albanians well,all that I see is gloom and doom!

Albanian society is rural and conservative.Sexual education is nonegzistent;contraception is nonegzistent and prohibited by Hodzas(imams).Birth rate one of the highest in the world and highest in Europe.Albanian men like to "patronize" bordelos both in Kosovo and Europewide.When they catch the virus from a prostitute they will go home to their wifes and infect them.No condoms with a wife means HIV positive babies,many of them!Albanian men will rather kill a wife(claiming her infidelity) then admit his own culpability.It is a metter of "honor"!

Not a nice picture,not at all.Kosovo,because of massive prostitution,and to a lesser extent,increased number of drugg addicts in their population(they`re not only dealers) has a potential to become Balkan South Africa!

A tragedy in a making!

Thank you,NATO!

impending catastrophe...

NATO doesn't come cheap, you know. Look at it this way: now they have democracy, at least on paper, and we all know that liberty is priceless! So any price should be worth it, right?

The way I see it, either they will start dying of HIV en masse by their own foolishness, or they will stop making babies at the rate they have been making, so no more Albanian baby factories. Not a bad deal.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.