The expanding epidemic of HIV-1 in the Russian Federation
Plos Med - "In 2017, the Russian Federation (RF) is estimated to have the largest number of HIV-1 infected citizens of any country in Europe. Cumulative reported diagnoses reached over 1.16 million infections by mid-2017, and actual infections, including those that remain undiagnosed and/or unreported, are doubtless substantially higher. In contrast to the global epidemic pattern, the HIV epidemic in the RF and in most countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia continues to expand significantly.
Over 103,000 new HIV diagnoses were reported in the RF in 2016, a 5% increase in new infections over the previous year; reported HIV diagnoses had been increasing at some 10% per year from 2011–2016. Among Russian men aged 30–39 years of age, a group that has the highest male infection burden, some 2.8% were living with HIV infection in 2016. AIDS deaths, too, are rising and now negatively impact life expectancy. From January to June 2017, some 14,631 AIDS deaths were recorded, a 13.5% increase over the previous 6-month period. HIV/AIDS has risen to feature in the top 10 causes of premature death in the RF—a 35% increase from 2005. These realities should concern all who seek global control of the HIV pandemic.
Despite the severity of this epidemic, including its scale, scope, and trajectory, remarkably little attention has been paid to the associated public health crisis in the international scientific literature. This may in part be due to the limited availability of data on HIV-1 in the RF that are presented and published outside Russia, and to the few international collaborations on HIV in the RF under the current administration." (Photo: A Jones/flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)