UNAIDS reports 1 mln HIV cases in Russia, chief doctor disagrees

MOSCOW, November 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's chief doctor on Monday said he disagreed with figures published by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which reported that around one million Russians were infected with HIV.

"This is most likely an exaggerated estimate and the data gathering techniques used by UNAIDS are not understandable to us," Gennady Onishchenko said.

Since 1987, when the first HIV case was reported in Russia, 403,000 HIV cases have been registered in the country, Onishchenko said. "Russia is the only country, which carries out testing of risk groups. This year, 22 million people will be tested for HIV."

By the end of 2005, 40.3 million people were HIV-infected worldwide, including 17.5 million women and 2.3 million children under the age of 15.