KABUL, Dec 1: Afghanistan has recorded only three deaths from AIDS but is sitting on a ticking “time bomb” of HIV with thousands of people injecting drugs, the United Nations and a think tank warned Thursday. The disease was not yet an epidemic with the Kabul Central Blood Bank registering only 35 HIV positive cases, the UN Population Fund said in a statement to mark World AIDS Day.

The public health ministry has identified three AIDS deaths and estimates that between 700 and 800 people in the country are HIV-positive, it said.

“The danger is that if it is not dealt with now, it could escalate out of control. Now is the time to act,” UNPF said.

A particular problem in the country — the world’s biggest producer of opium used to make heroin — was the growing number of injecting drug users, said an international drugs policy think-tank, the Senlis Council.

With nearly one million drug users in Afghanistan, about 7,000 of whom inject drugs, and few treatment facilities all the ingredients were present for “an uncontrollable epidemic,” it said in a statement.

“Afghanistan is sitting on a ticking HIV time bomb,” executive director Emmanuel Reinert said. “It will be too late if we let an epidemic take root before taking action,” said Reinert. “We can prevent it if we move now — before it starts.”

The council said many Afghans start injecting heroin as refugees in Pakistan and Iran. “They are now returning to their homeland and could be infected with the virus without being aware of it,” the think tank said. —AFP