Some 160 000 people contracted the virus that results in AIDS, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a joint statement with the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The WHO European Region comprises 53 countries, with a population of nearly 900 million people.
The ECDC/WHO report revealed that the rate of newly diagnosed HIV infections in Europe has risen by 52 percent over the past ten years, from 12 in every 100 000 of population in 2007 to 18.2 for every 100 000 in 2016.
“Europe needs to do more in its HIV response,” ECDC director Andrea Ammon said, since the average time from estimated time of infection until a person is diagnosed is three years, “which is far too long”.
“This is the highest number of cases recorded in one year. If this trend persists, we will not be able to achieve the … target of ending the HIV epidemic by 2030,” the WHO’s European regional director, Zsuzsanna Jakab, noted.
The report, prepared for World Aids Day on 1 December, suggested that HIV testing – including self-testing services and testing provided by lay providers – should be vastly expanded.
That decade-long increase was “mainly driven by the continuing upward trend in the East,” the report pointed out. Aome 37 million people worldwide have the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. The majority of cases are in Africa, where USAID has deployed teams to promote testing, prevention and treatment.
An ECDC study published earlier this year also found that around one in six new cases of HIV diagnosed in Europe are in people over the age of 50.
European Health Commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis, said: “To succeed, we must work together across borders, across silos, across organisations to promote easy access to diagnosis.”
New HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have risen by 60 percent since 2010. In addition, AIDS-related deaths have increased by 27 percent, The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, reported.
This year, Russia recorded the third highest number of new HIV cases anywhere in the world, according to The Independent. Russia has been a world leader in testing, with 25 million tests administered last year, but with drug shortages only 30 per cent of affected Russians are treated.
A new Russian state strategy was announced recently, seeking a 75 percent reduction in new cases by 2020, as well as improved treatment rates. The strategy also promised to criminalise HIV denialism by the end of 2018.
A vaccine trial is currently taking place in South Africa, but the results will not be available until 2019 at the earliest, and there is no way of telling if that vaccine will be good enough to help end the pandemic. Heterosexual sexual contact is the main route of transmission in Africa.