Orel, 17th October: A total of 62,270 carriers of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) had been registered in Russia as of 1st October.

There were 15,652 HIV-infected persons in Russia as of 1st January 2000. However, over 33,000 new HIV-carriers were revealed during the first nine months of this year alone, the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Supervision Committee has told Interfax.

Over 90 per cent of the cases have been discovered in intravenous drug users. At the same time, the number of those who were infected sexually has also risen. Medical workers are particularly concerned about the increase in the number of HIV-infected new-borns. Since the first HIV-carrier was registered in Russia in 1987, 381 children have been infected with AIDS in the womb. In most cases, the mothers were young drug users.

As of 1st October, HIV-carriers had been registered in 82 of Russia's 89 regions. Moscow and Moscow Region, which became involved in the epidemiological process in as late as 1999, are now leading in the distribution rate of the infection. Medical experts registered the epidemiological rate of HIV distribution in Ryazan, Kemerovo, Samara, Perm, Sverdlovsk and Leningrad Regions and in St Petersburg at the beginning of the year.