MOSCOW — Russian health officials say one in 50 people in the country’s fourth-largest city is carrying the HIV virus as Russia struggles to deal with a rapidly rising number of infections. The central Russian city of Yekaterinburg suffers from an HIV epidemic, regional Deputy Health Minister Tatiana Savinova said, according to a statement widely reported Wednesday by Russian media. At the current rate, some Russian officials expect the number of infections to double every five years. HIV infections in Russia are concentrated in large manufacturing cities in southern Siberia and along drug trafficking routes that begin in Central Asia and extend to Europe. Russia’s Sverdlovsk Region, of which Yekaterinburg is the capital, is the region most heavily infected with HIV in Russia, according to Savinova.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer November 02, 2016 20:47 UTC