Belarus occupies the 3rd place in terms of HIV incidence in Europe. Only the nearest neighbors of our country — Russia and Ukraine — are ahead of our country by this indicator.
HIV transmission remains a serious public health problem and affects more than 2 million people in Europe. In 2017 alone, almost 160,000 people were diagnosed with HIV. This is reported by Statista, referring to the data of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization.
At the same time, 82% of cases were diagnosed in Eastern Europe and only 16% in the EU. The newly diagnosed infections in two countries (the Russian Federation and Ukraine) accounted for 75% of all HIV cases in the European Region.
The total number of people diagnosed with HIV was highest in Eastern Europe (51.1 per 100,000 people), in Western Europe and the EU it was lower (6.9 and 6.2 per 100,000 people) and the lowest numbers were in Central Europe (3, 2 per 100,000 people)
Notably, the types of HIV transmission also vary geographically. Sexual transmission between men was the most common infection in the EU, and heterosexual contact and drug use were the main transmission routes in Eastern Europe.
The highest HIV prevalence in Europe was observed in Russia (71 new HIV diagnoses per 100,000 people), Ukraine (37), Belarus (26) and Moldova (21).
