The way HIV is spread has radically changed in Dagestan

Jamal Rizvanov, a specialist in the prevention department of the Republican Center for Infectious Diseases, is concerned about the HIV situation in Dagestan.

In a live broadcast at the SDGs, Rizvanov paid special attention to the drastic change in the mechanisms of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus in the republic. If earlier the main way of spreading the infection was considered to be the use of injectable drugs, today the majority of new cases of infection are recorded due to sexual intercourse.

"Previously, about 90% of cases were transmitted through drugs, but now this figure has dropped to about 15%. Thus, the main way the virus spreads has changed dramatically, and now about 85% of new cases are related to sexual intercourse," he said.

The doctor is particularly concerned about the age composition of patients: the main group consists of adults aged 30 to 50 years, and a significant number of patients belong to the category older than 50 years.

Separately, Rizvanov pointed out the risk of infection of residents of Dagestan outside their native region — according to statistics, the most disadvantaged regions in terms of incidence are in the Siberian Federal District and the Ural Federal District, where the Kemerovo region is the leader.

The infectious disease specialist also drew attention to the situation with tourists — up to three million people come to the region in the summer, some of them may be carriers of HIV without knowing it, which increases the risks of spread.

More than 6 thousand cases of infection have been registered in Dagestan since the beginning of the spread of HIV. Of this number, about 1.6 thousand people died.

The Republican Center for Infectious Diseases has published data on the prevalence of HIV infection in the cities of Dagestan. Cases of the disease have been registered in all municipalities, in several localities the indicators significantly exceed the average values. According to statistics, the highest incidence of HIV infection per 100,000 population was recorded in Derbent. The top five also included Kaspiysk, Dagestan Lights, Buinaksk and Makhachkala. The sixth place in this list is occupied by Izberbash. It is noted that among the newly identified carriers of the virus, men still predominate.