European health agencies urge funding to contain HIV transmission
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Stockholm/Copenhagen - A continued upsurge in HIV infections in Europe highlights the need - despite austerity measures - to sustain funding to test, treat and prevent HIV transmission, two European health agencies said Friday.
In 2011, there were more than 121,000 new HIV cases reported in Europe - of which more than 67,000 cases were recorded in Russia.
That represented roughly 3,000 more cases than reported in 2010, said the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm and the European office of the World Health Organization, which is based in Copenhagen.
The report was released on the eve of World Aids Day, December 1.
It said that over three quarters of new HIV new infections were in the eastern part of the European region.
Other findings suggested that about half of those diagnosed with HIV do not learn of their HIV status early enough to begin the most effective treatment. Aids cases and deaths in Eastern Europe and Central Asia were increasing due to late diagnosis and low treatment rates, the agencies said.
"Only one patient in four receives the needed antiretroviral treatment in the eastern part of the (European) region, a rate that is among the lowest in the world," WHO Regional Director for Europe Zsuzsanna Jakab said.//DPA
