HIV outbreak in prison shocks Lithuania

Three letters are resounding throughout the Lithuanian media as the country tries to come to terms with its biggest HIV scare yet.

The blood of 1,727 inmates at Alytus prison was tested for HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, over the past two weeks. A total of 207 were found to be infected.

Inmates say the infections could have begun with two prisoners from Klaipeda who contracted HIV before their arrest. They were sent to the prison a year-and-a-half ago.

The infection is believed to have been fueled by unrestricted intravenous drug-taking.

Lithuania has the lowest rate of HIV infection in Europe. There were only 361 registered cases in Lithuania before the HIV explosion in Alytus prison almost doubled that number in one blow.

"If there is an increase of syphilis in prison, we can usually expect an increase in syphilis cases outside the prison after some time as the prisoners are freed. The same could happen with HIV," said Saulius Caplinskas, the director of Lithuania's AIDS Center.

It was on the AIDS Center's recommendation that voluntary blood tests in Lithuania's prisons be carried out.

"Our staff and psychologists are now explaining to the prisoners how to live with HIV. Our main task is to fight the drug addiction there. It's not easy. This is heavy addiction."

Lessons about HIV have been hastily arranged for all of Lithuania's prisons. In one prison in Vilnius, striptease girls gave a performance to attract convicts to go and listen to a lesson held in tandem with the show.

There are only six registered HIV cases in Alytus, a town of 77,000 inhabitants.

Blood tests have now been carried out in all of Lithuania's prisons. Most of the handful of HIV infections there are carried by people who went to prison already with the virus. Other than in Alytus, only two new cases were detected - in Siauliai prison. Both men are former inmates in Alytus prison.

About 200 Alytus prisoners chose not to give blood samples. As in the rest of Europe, it is against the law in Lithuania to take blood samples by force.

Rimvidas Kugis, a state secretary in the Justice Ministry, insists that drug use spread the infection in Alytus. He claimed that prisoners' friends have been known to throw drugs over the prison fence and the guards are not always quick enough to catch the parcels.

Many prisoners have mobile phones, which help them coordinate drug deliveries. Kugis said the prison administration could not give sterile syringes to prisoners because this would be an obvious encouragement for drug use.

"Those prisoners who are not HIV-infected are now able to get separate living space in the prison if they wish," Kugis said.

The blood samples from Alytus were tested at the St. Petersburg Biomedical Center, which detected strain A of the HIV virus in most of the samples. Strain A is known to spread easily through sexual intercourse.

Nijole Ozelyte, a show business personality, former MP and charity organizer for prisoners, suggested that homosexual rape, not drugs, could be the main cause of the Alytus HIV explosion. She said that the prisoners' poor sex lives are a major cause of drug addiction and homosexual rape.However, Lithuanian officials are skeptical about this idea. Wives and girlfriends are allowed to visit prisons and have sex with inmates. And, according to Kugis, prisoners can buy condoms in the prison shop.

Ozelyte urged Lithuania to follow the example of Cuba and offer convicts state-sponsored prostitutes.

Another possible cause of the Alytus outbreak could be tattoos, claimed doctors at the AIDS Center. Whatever the cause, resignations of top officials in the Lithuanian penitentiary system are inevitable.