As Russia conceals HIV data, report finds rising infection rates among pregnant women — Meduza
meduza.io
December 1 is World AIDS Day. Last week, the project To Be Precise published two reports about how HIV is transmitted in contemporary Russia and what living with the illness looks like. Meduza summarizes the group’s findings.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42880974

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The exact number of people living with HIV in Russia is unknown. Data on HIV-related deaths is no longer published.

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It’s no longer clear how many people in Russia have died of HIV. Starting in 2025, the authorities stopped releasing these statistics, along with most demographic metrics. Data on new cases, now published annually rather than monthly, is also harder to find.

Foreign nationals in Russia test positive for HIV less often than Russian citizens.

Like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, Russia is one of the few countries that deport foreigners with HIV. Foreign nationals are required to undergo HIV testing if they want to live in Russia for more than 90 days, work there, obtain a residence permit, or if they are refugees or have applied for refugee status.

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Russia’s worst HIV rates are in the Urals and Siberia. Conservative-leaning Vologda is among the regions with the highest number of HIV-positive pregnant women.

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To assess HIV prevalence across Russia’s regions, [researchers] examined several indicators, such as the share of infected pregnant women and the proportion of people with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy. The situation proved most severe in the following regions:

  • Kemerovo
  • Tomsk
  • Chelyabinsk
  • Altai
  • Krasnoyarsk
  • The Leningrad region
  • The Komi Republic
  • Irkutsk
  • Perm
  • The Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Because all pregnant women in Russia are advised to undergo HIV testing, this indicator provides an indirect measure of the situation in each region. “If more than 1 percent of pregnant women in a region are infected for three consecutive years, it means the virus has spread beyond vulnerable groups,” [researchers] authors conclude. On average, the rate across Russia is 0.6 percent, but it exceeds 1 percent in 14 regions, 11 of which have reported infection rates at this level for several years already.

Vologda Governor Roman Filimonov has lobbied to end local abortion services and promoted the region as a proving ground for “conservative” values. However, the data show that HIV among pregnant women is rising, from 0.17 percent in 2022 to 1 percent in 2023 and then 2 percent in 2024.