‘Burning . . . Problem’ in West : Soviets Have AIDS, Claim Link to Mixed Marriages

AIDS is a problem in the Soviet Union, and the country’s doctors are searching for its cure, a prominent Soviet doctor said in the first such announcement concerning the deadly disease.

“We have some cases of this disease, and of course it is a problem. It is a difficult situation,” said Leonid S. Filarov, chief doctor at the Odzhinikidze Sanatorium in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

He said Soviet doctors are studying the causes and possible cures for acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a condition that breaks down the body’s defenses against disease, but he gave no indication how widespread it is in his country.

Filarov said some Soviet doctors believe that AIDS could be associated with mixed-race marriages.

“Mixed marriages can create genetic mutations, and it is possible AIDS could also be a result of these marriages. We are looking at this possibility,” Filarov told journalists this week during a visit to his sanatorium.

He made no further comment on the disease.

Until now, Moscow has only indirectly indicated that AIDS has spread to the Soviet Union.

A series of articles in the Soviet press, appearing before the International Youth Festival July 27-Aug. 3, warned that AIDS has become “a burning medical problem” in the West. It said clinics in the Soviet Union are studying the disease.

A Soviet source said the articles were a warning to Soviet youth against sexual contacts with thousands of foreign visitors--including 40 homosexual members of a Dutch delegation--who traveled to Moscow for the festival.

The Soviet press reports blamed the spread of AIDS mainly on homosexuals and drug addicts--groups never publicly admitted to exist in the Soviet Union.

“The risk of AIDS represented one of the most serious worries for the organizers of the festival,” the source said.

The predominant view among Western researchers is that AIDS is transmitted by a single virus passed on primarily through sexual contact. Homosexuals, drug addicts and hemophiliacs are considered to be the chief risk group.

As of Aug. 12, the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta had counted 12,408 cases in the United States, of which 6,212 were fatal.