The money will be used on a project to fight the diseases over the next five years, Deputy Health Minister Ruslan Khalfin was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Some 38 million dollars will be allocated to the nation's penitentiary system that has "about a third of all those affected with active tuberculosis," Khalfin said.

The rate of tuberculosis infections has decreased among Russia's 800,000-strong prison population during the past three years, Alexander Kononets, the top medical official in the national department responsible for prisons.

Some 74,000 cases of patients with active tuberculosis were registered in 2003, compared to the 98,500 in 2000, he said.

Out of the total prison population, 36,000 people or 4.5 percent, are infected with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, he said.

TERRA.WIRE