#5 - JRL 2006-242 - JRL Home
Russian HIV Infection Rate Growing

MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - A five-percent surge in people infected with HIV was registered in Russia for the period from January to September 2006, as compared with the same nine months of 2005, the Russian government said on Friday.

"In the first nine months of 2006, 24,390 new cases of HIV were registered," the Federal Supervisory Service for the Defense of Consumers' Rights and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) said in a release.

Altogether, more than 353,000 people have been diagnosed with HIV in Russia since 1987. They include 988 children infected by their mothers.

In addition, doctors are monitoring about 15,000 children who have HIV-positive mothers but have not received a diagnosis.

"There have been 1,940 confirmed cases of AIDS, among them 212 among children. The number of people who were diagnosed with AIDS and have died is 1,379, including 140 children. The number of HIV-infected people who have died of various causes is 10,760," the release said.

There are 30,000 registered HIV-infected people in St. Petersburg, 10,000 in Leningrad region, 28,500 in Sverdlovsk region, a total of 54,000 in the city and region of Moscow, 24,000 in Samara region, 20,000 in Irkutsk region, 16,000 in Chelyabinsk region, 14,700 in Orenburg region, and 10,000 in the Khanty-Mansi autonomous district, Rospotrebnadzor says.