Rate of HIV/AIDS infection up by 20 percent

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Tajikistan rose by 20.5 percent over the nine months to September 2005 compared to the same period last year, the head of the Republican AIDS Centre, Azamjon Mirzoev, said in the capital, Dushanbe, this week. The quantity of non-registered individuals with HIV could be much higher, Mirzoev added. "There are 454 HIV-infected individuals in Tajikistan or 6.8 individuals per 100 thousand people in the country. We have infected people in 38 regions of Tajikistan," he said. But the real number of HIV-infected people is difficult to determine because of poor monitoring in the poorest ex-Soviet state. "Based on our estimates - and international experts agreed with that - the real number of HIV-infected individuals is not less than 6,800 people," Mirzoev said. Intravenous drug users make up the biggest number of registered HIV-infected people in Tajikistan. There are more than 55,000 of them and they source most of their heroin from neighbouring Afghanistan - one of the biggest producers of the drug in the world. The United Nations has given more than US $4.9 million in two grants for the period 2003-2006 for HIV/AIDS prevention measures and for HIV-testing centres. The new figures for Tajik infection rates came as the UN said on Monday the rate of HIV infection had increased sharply in eastern Europe and Central Asia in the last year. Ukraine and Russia registered the largest number of new cases, while Uzbekistan also saw a dramatic spike in HIV infection rates. "The AIDS epidemic represents a challenge for this region," UNAIDS official Flavio Mirella said in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, while presenting this year's AIDS epidemic update report. More than 3.1 million globally have died of AIDS-related illnesses since 2004.