160,000 people were diagnosed with the HIV virus in Europe last year, most of them in Eastern Europe.
In the EU, over 29,000 people contracted HIV in 2016, a slight decrease from the previous year, according to a report from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the ECDC leader Andrea Ammon, it takes three years from when people get infected until they are diagnosed, which makes treatment more difficult and the outlook for the patient worse.
Most new infectious cases were detected in Eastern European countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where the infection rates have increase as opposed to the rest of the world.
“The HIV epidemic continues to grow at an alarming rate in the European region, primarily in the eastern part,” said WHO’s regional director in Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab.
Ukraine peaked on last year’s list of having the most newly detected HIV-infected cases per capita, with 33.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Latvia had the fewest cases in Europe with 18.5 per 100,000 inhabitants.
World AIDS Day is highlighted every year on December 1st.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
