MOSCOW, December 1 (Reuters) - The rapid spread of HIV poses a greater threat to Russia's

young people than conflict in the breakaway Chechnya region, the head of

Russia's AIDS prevention center said Tuesday.

On the eve of World Aids Day, Dr. Vadim Pokrovsky said the surge in new HIV

cases among youngsters this year heralds an AIDS epidemic in the vast country

and in five years 10 percent of the population could be infected.

``The spread of HIV is getting more and more serious, more and more

dangerous. It is now more dangerous than the war in the North Caucasus, in

Chechnya,'' Pokrovsky told a news conference.

``Youngsters in their mid-20s are most at risk, what does this mean? It means

they will get an education, get jobs and then die young. If they have

children, the probability is that the children will be born with HIV and the

cycle starts again.''

Pokrovsky said HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, was

spreading rapidly in Moscow among drug users. But he said this year the

center had also noted a sharp rise in cases among Russia's heterosexual

population.

``If the epidemic grows at the same rate, then in two years time the number

of HIV cases in Russia could stand at about one million and in five years, 10

million. This AIDS epidemic threatens Russia with a demographic

catastrophe,'' he said.

He said Russia had registered 12,425 new cases of HIV this year, three times

more than those last year out of a population of about 147 million.

Almost half of the new cases were in Moscow where 5,877 new cases were

registered, 10 times more than in the same period last year. But he said the

figure was probably higher because many people did not yet know they were

infected.

``We believe that the real number of HIV infected people in Russia now stands

at around 150,000, and in Moscow and its regions about 50,000. All these

people are threatened by illness and death in 10 years time,'' he said.

Pokrovsky said youngsters between the ages of 19 and 25 were most at risk --

the same age group now fighting against Islamic militants in breakaway

Chechnya.

Military officials have been reluctant to name the number of deaths in

Russia's current military campaign, which is aimed at destroying the

guerrillas blamed by Moscow for a series of devastating bomb blasts that

killed up to 300 people.

NTV television reported last Sunday that 462 Russian soldiers had been killed

in Chechnya as of mid-November.

``The AIDS epidemic is spreading throughout the whole population,'' said

Pokrovsky. ``The only way to stop the virus is to influence and educate

people to look after themselves.''