Azerbaijan registers 455 HIV cases in 2009

The Azerbaijan Republic AIDS Prevention Center has released the HIV/AIDS statistics of last year.

Health Ministry’s press office said the rate of HIV infection is low in Azerbaijan, it is mainly spread among the injecting drug users.

Some 62.2 percent of the HIV infection in Azerbaijan in 2009, 62.6 percent of all infection cases in 1987-01.01.2010 were caused by injection drug use.

As many as 455 HIV facts were recorded in Azerbaijan in 2009.

A total of 437 of them (96 percent) are Azerbaijanis, 18 (4 percent) foreigners; 362 (82.8 percent) out of 437 infected Azerbaijanis are men, 75 (17.2 percent) women.

Some 99 Azerbaijanis passed to AIDS phase during this period, the number of those died from AIDS was 42.

The Republic AIDS Prevention Center has registered 2,264 HIV-positive people in the country since 1987, when first case was identified, until now.

A total of  2,174 of them (96 percent) are Azerbaijanis, 90 (4 percent) foreigners, 1,819 (83.7 percent) of HIV-positive Azerbaijanis are men, 355 (16.3 percent) women;  447 Azerbaijanis are on AIDS phase, 281 died from AIDS.

From 1992, when HIV infection was first recorded in Azerbaijani citizen, till 2009, 637 (29.3 percent) out of 2,174 HIV-infected people were registered in Baku and Absheron region, 1,497 (68.9 percent) in other 53 administrative areas, the whereabouts of 40 (1.8 percent) have not been determined.

/APA/