Government reports low AIDS incidence

Health Minister Alamkhon Ahmadov has announced that Tajikistan has the lowest number of AIDS cases of all the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), all former republics of the Soviet Union, in an interview with Iranian Radio. Speaking after a meeting of the CIS Health Council in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, Ahmadov said that of five registered cases of AIDS in the country, one patient had died. Rudick Adamian, UNAIDS Inter-country Programme Adviser for Central Asia told IRIN on Tuesday, that while Tajikistan, like Turkmenistan, has reported low incidence of the disease, there have been no thorough medical studies implemented to warrant such conclusions. According to the Iranian radio report, the first AIDS case had been registered in northern Tajikistan in the late 1980s, thereby casting doubt on low the number of cases stated for today. UNAIDS’ epidemiological fact sheet for 2000 indicated that there were fewer than 100 estimated cases of people living with HIV/AIDS in Tajikistan, and that the percentage rate in the adult population was estimated at around 0.01 percent, but that the number of cumulative deaths from AIDS was unknown. HIV testing was mandatory for blood donors, people deemed at risk of HIV infection and foreign residents, while unauthorised testing was not permitted in Tajikistan, it added.