Another thousand people infected with AIDS identified in Iran
Nahid Khodakarami, a member of the Tehran City Council's Health and Environment Commission, says that in the first six months of 2019, 1,000 new cases of AIDS were identified in Iran.
According to a report by Mehr News Agency on Sunday, December 10, Ms. Khodakarami, in a statement she made to the Tehran City Council on the occasion of World AIDS Day, also said that if "the taboos surrounding this disease are broken, the rate of detection will increase several times."
He also said: "We are not afraid to remind young people to use condoms if they engage in risky sexual behavior. We are not afraid to tell young people what dangers threaten them if they engage in risky sexual relationships."
Alireza Raisi, Deputy Minister of Health, also confirmed these statistics and said that "95 percent of new HIV cases are among vulnerable people."
Raisi estimated that "there are 60,000 people living with HIV in the country. 40,573 HIV cases have been registered across the country, of which 18,938 have died and 21,635 are still alive."
Kambiz Hatzari, head of the AIDS and Harm Reduction Group of the National Welfare Organization, also said in a meeting in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province that only "40 percent of people infected with the AIDS virus in the country have been identified."
Ebrahim Qaderi, deputy director of health at Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, also told ISNA news agency that out of 580 known cases of AIDS in Kurdistan province, 246 people have died.
Mahmoud Hosseinpour, deputy director of health at Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, also announced the total number of people infected with the AIDS virus in Hormozgan as 1,372, of whom 511 have died.
Mehdi Gholian, head of the Khorasan Razavi Province Health Center, also announced the identification of 790 cases of patients infected with the HIV virus.
According to the Hamshahri newspaper, Ali Hosseinpour, the expert in charge of the Behavioral Diseases Department at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, said that "50 to 60 new cases" of AIDS are identified annually in the areas covered by this university in Khorasan Razavi Province.
According to him, "Previously, the rate of HIV transmission in Khorasan Razavi was between 10 and 12 percent, but in recent years, the wave of infection with this disease through sexual contact has been increasing."
The official website of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the House of the People, also wrote in a report, "Among the infected people identified in 2018 and half of this year, the incidence of infection through shared syringes has decreased to 31 percent, cases of sexual transmission have increased to 48.6 percent, and mother-to-infant transmission has reached 2.6 percent."
According to the report, Minoo Mohrez, head of the Iranian AIDS Research Center, says: "In the last few years, sexual contact has become the main way of transmitting AIDS in the country, and the number of women who have been infected with HIV through sexual contact has increased tenfold."
According to Ms. Mahrez, "Those affected are between the ages of 25 and 40, and poor information and lack of education have exposed them to this disease."
In Iran, the exact number of people infected with AIDS is also considered confidential, and recently, after a number of people in the village of Chenar Mahmoud Lordegan were infected, officials once again refused to provide accurate statistics on the number of infected people.
Source: Radio Farda
