Iran, Tehran, 1 December / Trend corr. A.Namdari/ Iranian health agencies stated they are seriously concerned about dangerous sexual relations as a factor of the spread of AIDS in the country.
According to statistics, there are over 18,000 HIV-positive people in Iran, which ranks in the top of world's young people number list.
There are
70,000-100,000 HIV-positive people in Iran, and most of them have not yet been
examined, said Chief of Iran's HIV Combating Department Abbas Sadagat.
HIV is one of few diseases that are not widely discussed in Iran because of a series of mental and religious reasons. For this reason and because of a
lack of public information about how the disease spreads, the number of
infected people has risen dramatically in this country.
The reason for the spread of the virus is that some young tend to dangerous
sexual relations in the country, said Health Minister Kamran Bagheri Lankarani.
Lankarani's statement
can be attributed to the number of rare statements by high-ranking officials of
Iran about presence of a new wave of HIV in the country.
Most HIV-positive people caught the virus as a result of sexual relations, said
a member of the parliamentary health and treatment commission Amir Hossein
Gazizadeh.
According to Gazizadeh, "secret relations" in Iran cause the spread of HIV in the
country.
Superficial HIV spread study shows the fact that majority of HIV-positive
people contracted through sexual relations, others - through blood.
According to HIV researchers, the virus was detected in 1981. So far about
65mln people have caught the disease worldwide. Of these, more than 25mln have
died from the virus.
According to the latest reports of the World Health Organization, 24,500,000
people live with AIDS in southern Africa, 7,600,000 - in Asia, and 5,700,000 -
in India.
According to the latest reports of the Iranian Health Ministry, 93.7% of AIDS
patients are men and 6.3% are women.
The Islamic Republic of Iran said that this year the number of AIDS reached
18,815 people in the country.
A total of 81% of HIV-positive individuals in Iran caught the disease using drugs by injection, 12% - through sexual contact.
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