AIDS comes

Baku/20.05.17/Turan: Every year on the third Sunday of May the World AIDS Day is held. This year this is May 21. This memorable date was first organized in 1983, when no one could predict the magnitude of the global epidemic. Unfortunately, to this day, AIDS, which caused the death of millions of people, is our sad and difficult reality. Doctors, activists of social movements on this day, carry out educational activities aimed at preventing people from the risk of infection and teach them to avoid danger. The purpose of the action is to draw the attention of the world public to the problems of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected with the virus, as well as to the spread of this disease.

According to WHO, today there are more than 42 million people living on the planet infected with HIV, and this figure is increasing by another 14-15 thousand people every day. The majority of HIV-infected young people are under the age of 30. Over the past 25 years, AIDS has killed about 25 million people.

In Azerbaijan, since the first case of detection of AIDS infection in 1987 to April of this year, officially registered more than 5,000 infected. At the stage of AIDS are more than 1800 patients who died from the disease - 821. These data are presented in the report of the Republican Center (RC) for AIDS Control of the Ministry of Health, published the day before.

According to the director of the RC, Esmira Almamedova, in the first quarter of this year, 108 people were diagnosed with AIDS in the country. One of the infected is a foreigner, all the other residents of Azerbaijan. Among registered patients, men predominate - over 60%.

As research has shown, the bulk of infected people are among injecting drug users. However, there are many facts when infection occurred as a result of unprotected sex. The situation with AIDS in the country is worrying and alarming, Zulfiya Mustafayeva, chairman of the NGO Legal Development and Democracy, believes. In her opinion, statistics do not correspond to reality, since many people who are carriers of this virus do not suspect this. Therefore, the announced figure can be increased several times.

"The dynamics of the spread of the disease takes a dangerous turn, since not only drug addicts and women of easy conduct enter the risk group, but also labor migrants working abroad. They became distributors of AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and hepatitis. In the regions of the country unfavorable situation with the spread of AIDS. If in the southern regions the spread of the virus is associated with seasonal labor migration and the use of injecting drugs, in Baku, Sumgayit, Absheron, the local epidemic is caused by the growth of drug addiction and the risky behavior of young people in the field of sexual relations," points out Mustafayeva. However, there is an equally important aspect of the problem - the neglect of protective measures and the voluntary passage of screening for HIV/AIDS. Therefore, the scale of the spread of AIDS infection in Azerbaijan has not yet been fully established.

"It is necessary to develop a mechanism for mandatory involvement in medical examination of people at risk. This will make it possible to localize the spread of these diseases. At the same time, it is necessary to regularly conduct educational campaigns in the regions of the republic in order to inform the population about effective methods of AIDS prevention and treatment, the formation of safe behavior skills and personal responsibility for their life and health, the importance of HIV testing. " -0--