DUSHANBE, December 25, 2008, Asia-Plus — The number of officially registered HIV sufferers in Tajikistan has reached 1,422 people, the Republican AIDS Center head Murodali Rouziyev announced at a board meeting of the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Dushanbe on December 23.
The source at a MoH said that implementation of the national program for prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) had been one of major topics of the meeting.
Speaking at the meeting, Rouziyev noted that of the total number of officially registered HIV sufferers in the country, 1,148 are men and 247 are women.
According to him, 802 persons or 56.3 percent contracted the virus through injection drug use. Sexual contact was the transmission route for 25.5 percent of HIV cases (364), mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV accounted for 0.7 percent of HIV cases (11), and the cause of transmission of HIV in 17.2 percent of cases is unknown.
The AIDS Center head noted that labor migrants constituted some 10 percent (140) of people living with HIV.
During the meeting, it was noted that confidence centers to diagnose and treat STIs had been set up in 30 cities and district across the country. 22 training seminars for 355 medical workers have been conducted in the country in the framework of the national program for prevention of HIV and other STIs.
