The highest rates of newly diagnosed HIV infections were observed in Russia in 2017, the World Health Organization's European office and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said in a report published on Wednesday.

Axar.az reports citing Tass.

"Rates of newly diagnosed HIV infections for 2017 varied significantly among countries in the WHO European Region, with the highest rates per 100 000 population observed in the Russian Federation (71.1), Ukraine (37), Belarus (26.1) and the Republic of Moldova (20.6), and the lowest in Bosnia and Herzegovina (0.3), Slovakia (1.3) and Slovenia (1.9)," the report reads.

According to the document, as far as Eastern Europe is concerned, "when combining data from the Russian Federation within data reported by the other 12 countries on people for whom the mode of HIV transmission was known, heterosexual transmission accounted for 59% of new diagnoses, transmission through injecting drug use for 37%, sex between men for 3% and mother-to-child transmission for 0.5%."

Late HIV diagnosis remains a challenge in the Region," the report points out, adding that "the increase in new diagnoses in the East of the Region continued, with 2017 continuing the trend of recent years in becoming the year with the highest number and rate ever recorded.