As many as 971 new HIV infection cases were recorded in Belarus in the first 11 months of 2010, compared with 972 in the same period of previous year, according to the HIV/AIDS department of the National Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Public Health.
As many as 11,661 Belarusians had reportedly been diagnosed as HIV-infected as of December 1, 2010.
The Homyel region had the highest incidence of HIV infection with 5,925 known cases. There reportedly were 1,640 infected people in the city of Minsk and 1,535 in the Minsk region.
People aged between 15 and 29 accounted for 64.5 percent of all known HIV cases as of December 1.
In recent years, there has been an upward trend in the proportion of people who contracted the virus through sexual contact. They accounted for 57.2 percent of all new cases in 2005, 63.4 percent in 2006, 66.8 percent in 2007, 75 percent in 2008, 77.6 percent in 2009 and 75.5 percent in the first 11 months of 2010. As of December 1, 174 children had tested HIV positive in the country and eight of them had died.
As many as 1,155 AIDS patients had reportedly died in Belarus since 1987, including 218 between January and November 2010.
