Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Eastern Europe and Central Asia is the only region where HIV prevalence clearly remains on the rise. The number of people living with HIV has almost tripled since 2000 and reached an estimated total of 1.4 million in 2009. A rapid rise in HIV infections among people who inject drugs at the turn of the century caused the epidemic in this region to surge.

The HIV epidemics in the region are concentrated mainly among people who inject drugs, sex workers, their sexual partners and, to a much lesser extent, men who have sex with men.