The number of HIV-infected people in Russia has reached a million people

In Russia, 1 million HIV-infected people are officially registered, Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, said.

“On January 20, the millionth HIV-infected person was officially entered into the database of HIV-positive citizens of Russia, located at the federal scientific and methodological center for the prevention and control of AIDS,” he said.

The one million Russian with HIV, Pokrovsky said, was a 26-year-old woman who was examined in the Rostov region.

“This is far from the last case discovered in 2015, as reports from the regions will continue to arrive throughout February, and belated ones in March. It is expected that in 2015 more than 93,000 new cases will be reported, and this is the highest figure for all the years of the epidemic,” said the head of the center for the prevention and control of AIDS.

Far from the entire population has been examined, and, according to expert data, up to 1.5 million Russians can already be carriers of HIV, Pokrovsky noted.

• Since the registration of the first case of HIV in Russia in 1987, according to the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS, about 205 thousand HIV-infected people have died of various causes.
• In May 2015, Vadim Pokrovsky predicted that if the situation does not change, then in four to five years the number of officially registered HIV-infected people in the Russian Federation will reach two million.
• To combat the epidemic, Pokrovsky called for the introduction of substitution (methadone) therapy for drug addicts in Russia, as well as for sex education lessons in schools. Pokrovsky noted that some State Duma deputies, as well as the Federal Drug Control Service, oppose such initiatives.