Until the mid-1990s, Central and Eastern European countries were relatively free of HIV epidemics. There were however several exceptions. In Romania in the mid- to late-1980s, thousands of children were contaminated through both infected blood transfusions and poorly sterilised injection equipment. In Poland and Yugoslavia in the late 1980s, HIV spread rapidly among injecting drug users (IDU). Since 1995 outbreaks of HIV infection have been reported in several countries of the former Soviet Union.