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The impact of HIV-infection and AIDS in the central Asian republics is studied through the example of Uzbekistan. How, despite similarities, does this phenomenon in countries that used to belong to the USSR differ from what is observed in other parts of the world, in particular southern Africa? The principal differences are explained in order to examine how countries tackle and manage this infection: prevention policies, treatments, psychological support, NGOs, associations, etc. This analysis focuses on how political authorities adopt a rhetoric that inexorably reproduces the Soviet norm by stigmatizing and discrediting the infected, who are classified as "deviants" and considered to be "socially unproductive". Various written sources (official statistics, public and internal reports, prevalence surveys from Uzbek centers for disease control) are used along with oral sources (interviews conducted in 1997-1998 and 2004 in Uzbekistan). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]