Events
According to the European Commission, one out of three HIV-infected people is the virus that causes AIDS does not know that he is ill, thereby increasing the risk of infection.
In a document on the fight against AIDS, more than a quarter of a century after its official publication, the EU executive branch states that, although currently there is an effective treatment that slows down the evolution of the human immunodeficiency virus, and neither a vaccine nor a cure has been found so far.
“We must not stop political interference in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” says Androulla Vasile, EU Commissioner for Health. “We must encourage people to take responsibility for their own health and the health of their partners, to regularly protect themselves and be tested for the virus,” she added.
According to the Commission, the number of people living with HIV or AIDS in the 27 countries of the European Union, as well as in some neighboring countries, has increased from 1.5 million in 2001 to 2.2 million in 2007. More than 50,000 new HIV infections were reported in 2007 in the European Union and neighbouring countries.
The number of adults aged 15 to 49 who are infected with HIV varies widely from country to country: from 0.1 per cent of the total population in some countries to 1.0 per cent in others.
France, Italy, Spain and Portugal have a fairly high infection rate, ranging from 0.4 to 0.5 percent of the total population, but this figure triples when we are talking about determining the number of patients in Estonia, where this percentage is 1.3.
In Russia, the average number of infected people is 1.1, and in Ukraine it is 1.6.