A rumor started by the World Health Organization (WHO) that Greeks were injecting themselves with HIV to get about $950 in monthly health benefits was retracted by them at almost the same time - 

WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas on Tuesday told Al Jazeera that the global health authority had no evidence to support a statement published in its recent report that about half of new infections in Greece were self-inflicted to claim the money.

Instead, Thomas said the report should have said that half of new infections were among intravenous drug users, and that there was “anecdotal evidence” that some new infections were self-inflicted to claim benefits, although the WHO has no evidence to support those anecdotes.

 When there are no jobs and no money, there is often blood in the streets.  ”The statement is the consequence of an error in the editing of the document, for which WHO apologises,” the organisation said in a statement.

“There may be anecdotal evidence [of self-inflicted HIV infections], but no evidence as such,” Thomas added.

The WHO report, titled Review of social determinants and the health divide in the WHO European Region, included a case study focusing on the Greek financial crisis.

“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 report noted.

According to the WHO’s retraction, the statement should have read: “Half of the new HIV cases are self-injecting and out of them few are deliberately inflicting the virus.”

The WHO report relied in part on an article in the medical journal Lancet, which referenced “accounts of deliberate self-infection by a few individuals to obtain access to benefits of €700 per month and faster admission onto drug substitution programmes.”

SOURCE: aljazeera.com/news