Europe tops world in HIV epidemic growth, WHO says
WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri Kluge (Getty Images)
The European region has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in the world. This trend has lasted for several years, according to WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri Kluge.
Kluge notes that with the resources and technology available to diagnose, treat, and prevent transmission, no one in the European region should be developing AIDS, let alone dying of it.
"Yet, ironically, the WHO European Region has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in the world. 50% of people in the European Region receive a late diagnosis -- people come to healthcare too late, and we are not managing to reach them earlier," said Kluge.
According to him, this trend has not changed for 10 years. In some countries of the region, the mortality rate is unacceptably high, "in others, HIV transmission has been almost completely stopped."
HIV in Ukraine
As reported by the National Health Service of Ukraine, as of November 1, 2023, in Ukraine have been identified
- 158,803 cases of HIV,
- 48,908 cases of AIDS.
"If HIV is not detected in time and treatment is not started, AIDS develops, an irreversible condition when the immune system is so weakened that it cannot fight the simplest infections, and as a result, one dies from one of them," added the National Health Service of Ukraine.
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