The World Health Organization has noted another record year for new HIV cases in Europe. An EU agency also reports that one in seven sufferers do not know they are infected, raising chances of spreading the virus.
Europe registered the highest number of new HIV cases in a single year in 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, basing the figure on data from the 53 countries included in the UN agency's definition of the European region.
It said there were 153,407 new cases in 2015, up from 142,000 the year before, which had already been a record.
Of the 2015 cases, almost 80 percent were registered in eastern Europe, with Russia accounting for 64 percent overall and 81 percent in the eastern region.
In Russia, where HIV is still a largely taboo subject, heterosexual intercourse is the main transmission route for the virus, which is spread through contact with contaminated body fluids. Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Moldova, Latvia and Georgia also had high rates of new infections last year.
Western Europe accounted for 18 percent of infections, and central Europe 3 percent.
In the 31 countries covered by the ECDC data - the 28 EU nations plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway - sex between men was the main reported HIV transmission mode, accounting for 42 percent of diagnoses. Heterosexual sex accounted for 32 percent of diagnoses, followed by drug use at 4 percent.
In Germany, a recent estimate by the Robert-Koch-Institut suggested that some 84,700 HIV-infected people were living in the country, 12,600 of them without knowing they had contracted the virus.
HIV, which stands for "human immunodeficiency virus," is the cause of AIDS, a condition that weakens people's immune system, meaning that any number of usually routine illnesses can become life-threatening.
Europe registered the highest number of new HIV cases in a single year in 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, basing the figure on data from the 53 countries included in the UN agency's definition of the European region.
It said there were 153,407 new cases in 2015, up from 142,000 the year before, which had already been a record.
Of the 2015 cases, almost 80 percent were registered in eastern Europe, with Russia accounting for 64 percent overall and 81 percent in the eastern region.
In Russia, where HIV is still a largely taboo subject, heterosexual intercourse is the main transmission route for the virus, which is spread through contact with contaminated body fluids. Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Moldova, Latvia and Georgia also had high rates of new infections last year.
Western Europe accounted for 18 percent of infections, and central Europe 3 percent.
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| The HIV virus was first clinically observed in 1981 |
In the 31 countries covered by the ECDC data - the 28 EU nations plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway - sex between men was the main reported HIV transmission mode, accounting for 42 percent of diagnoses. Heterosexual sex accounted for 32 percent of diagnoses, followed by drug use at 4 percent.
In Germany, a recent estimate by the Robert-Koch-Institut suggested that some 84,700 HIV-infected people were living in the country, 12,600 of them without knowing they had contracted the virus.
HIV, which stands for "human immunodeficiency virus," is the cause of AIDS, a condition that weakens people's immune system, meaning that any number of usually routine illnesses can become life-threatening.
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