The World Health
Organisation (WHO) has been forced to backtrack after wrongly claiming Greeks
were intentionally infecting themselves with HIV to claim benefits.
The report, prepared by University College
London's Institute of Health Equity, said: "HIV rates and heroin use have
risen significantly, with about half of new HIV infections being self-inflicted
to enable people to receive benefits of €700 per month and faster admission on
to drug substitution programmes."
The findings were reported by news
organisations around the world, but after the claims came under further
scrutiny, WHO was forced into a humiliating climbdown. The organization’s head
of public affairs Gregory Haertl said on Twitter that there had been a
"typo" in the report, adding: "People r not giving themselves HIV
in Greece to get benefits."
In an official statement, the WHO said the sentence should have read: "half of the new HIV cases are self-injecting and out of them few are deliberately inflicting the virus." The organisation apologised for the error, which it blamed on "an error in the editing of the document".
It said the sources of the statement were
2011 reports from the Lancet and the Greek Documentation and Monitoring Centre
for Drugs, which mentioned "accounts of deliberate self-infliction by a
few individuals".
The WHO said: "Greece has reported a
significant, 52% increase of new HIV infection in 2011 compared to the 2010,
largely driven by infections among people who inject drugs in recent years. "The reasons for this increase remain
multifaceted and WHO welcomes efforts of the ad hoc working group and other
entities to fully understand the underlying reasons and recommend appropriate
measures to extend the benefits of the comprehensive package of interventions
for harm reduction to all people who inject drugs."
Figures from the Hellenic Centre for Disease
Control and Prevention, also known as Keelpno, showed the HIV infection rate in
Greece has nearly tripled in 10 years - up from 3.9 in every 100,000 people in
2003 to 10.9 in 2012.
There were 1,180 HIV infections last year
compared with 434 in 2003, while the disease was transmitted through injections
in around a tenth (8.9%) of cases in 2012. The majority of infections (53%)
occur among Greek men aged 25-39. Prostitution also increased, "probably
as a response to economic hardship", it said, adding that Greeks were less
likely than they were in 2007 to visit a doctor or dentist when they were
feeling unwell.
Greece is going through its sixth
consecutive year of recession amid brutal austerity cuts. The country has twice
been bailed out by the international community, although its draft budget for
2014 predicts economic growth of 0.6% next year.
(Source: news.sky.com)
