OREANDA-NEWS  In Russia, the incidence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2023 decreased by 4.6 percent compared to the previous year. This follows from the data presented in the article by the staff of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Central Research Institute of Epidemiology" of Rospotrebnadzor "Preventive effect of treatment of patients with HIV infection in Russia". It is published in the collection of materials of the All-Russian Congress on Infectious Diseases named after Academician Pokrovsky, Vedomosti writes.

According to the results of last year, the incidence of HIV in Russia amounted to 40 people per 100,000 population. It follows from the article that doctors in 2023 were unable to save 34,254 HIV-infected people, which is 0.5 percent less than a year earlier. In the same year, 855,142 patients infected with the infection were under the supervision of specialists, and 42,663 people interrupted treatment.

The number of new HIV cases last year was 58,397, according to statistical forms No. 1 and No. 2. With their help, doctors report on every case of infection detected in Russia, explained Vadim Pokrovsky, co-author of the article, head of the specialized research department for the prevention and control of AIDS at the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor.

More than a quarter of people (28.3 percent) who were diagnosed with HIV did not register at the dispensary or were lost from observation, the article says. As Pokrovsky explained, such patients include three categories of citizens: drug addicts, people who do not know about their diagnosis, as well as those who are afraid to register for fear that others will become aware of their illness.