AIDS epidemic increasing faster in eastern Europe than in rest of world: new figures

The number of cases of HIV infection in eastern Europe is rising faster than anywhere else in the world, according to a report published by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on 28 November (1). The latest figures, published to coincide with this year’s World AIDS Day on 1 December, show that there were more than 75 000 new diagnoses of HIV infection in Russia between January and early November 2001, a 15-fold increase in just three years.