European health officials warn Greece to address increasing number of HIV cases

Officials with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said Greece must act to combat a rising number of HIV cases within high-risk populations, including drug users, or face increased health care costs in the future, Reuters reports. ECDC Director Marc Sprenger said, "Immediate concerted action is needed in order to curb and eventually stop the current outbreak," according to the news agency. "Sprenger will meet Greek officials this week to say that free needles, syringes and opioid substitution projects must be stepped up, and testing and treatment for the human immunodeficiency virus made available to all," Reuters writes, noting the ECDC published a report on HIV in Greece (Kelland, 11/29). The ECDC "reported 314 cases of the AIDS-causing virus among injecting drug users in the first eight months of this year," compared "with 208 for all of 2011 and no more than 15 cases a year from 2001 to 2010," Bloomberg Businessweek reports. While the extent to which Greece's economic crisis has contributed to the outbreak is unclear, austerity measures and high unemployment may fuel new infections in Athens and beyond the capital unless programs to provide methadone, clean needles and condoms are expanded, the ... ECDC said," the news agency writes (Bennett, 11/30).