Vienna: For a while now, the AIDS epidemic was believed to have stabilised but now there's concern that it may be on the rise once again. Countries in Eastern Europe and former CIS states are now reporting an exponential rise in HIV cases all because of unsafe injectible drug use.

Injecting drug users or IDUs, whose numbers are rising alarmingly across the globe are now believed to be driving the AIDS epidemic. A majority of users are young and often poor and end up sharing syringes. Eastern Europe and Russia are the hubs. Russia has reported that 75% of IDUs are HIV positive.

"There is a problem of selling syringes. There is only one drug store that is far away that sells syringes. So people are going through the city looking for used syringes," said Aleksandra Osin, Journalist & Outreach worker, Russia.

Nina Ferencic, Senior Regional Advisor, HIV/AIDS UNICEF added," Sharing of injections is a very effective way of transmission, so you can have rapid increases in the epidmeic. When HIV enters a drug using population, the chances of the virus spreading rapidly is very high.

"So you can have scenario that from one year to the next you can have a group of drug users, in whom the infection rate has gone up from non-existent to almost 60% so it is a very effective route of HIV transmission."

A new study done by UNICEF shows that illegal drug trade is fuelling HIV/AIDS. It found that all along the illegal drug routes from Afghanistan to western Europe, there are mini -outbreaks of the disease and the worst affected are children.

"What happens is that you have an active drug trade or a drug route and there are a lot of people addicted to drugs themselves. When that enters into the hospital system where there is insufficient equipment and lack of infection control measures and when children get into the hospital, they get infected so there have been outbreaks in hospital settings," Ferencic added.

In India, too, there has been an upsurge of HIV among IDUs. In states like Punjab and Delhi, both seen as transit points of the drug trade, there are a number of families who have lost their relatives to drug use and HIV but so far there are no services for IDUs who are seen as outcasts and criminalised.

At the international aids conference, countries will pledge not only to curb this organised crime but also provide essential services such as harm reduction and treatment to drug users who are also HIV positive.