According to the European Union’s
Disease control agency and WHO, which Thursday called for better testing HIV
testing to spot cases early, undiagnosed HIV cases are on the rise in Eastern
Europe, Russia and Central Asia, AFP reported.

Early detection of the HIV virus stops
further spread and slows down the impact on the patient.

European Centre for Disease Prevention
and Control (ECDC), in collaboration with WHO’s regional office for Europe
displayed that in 2019 more than 136,000 cases of HIV were diagnosed across the
WHO European region, with 80% rate of cases in the eastern part.

The region in question includes Russia
and several of the central Asian nations.

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AFP quoted the agencies to be saying
that about half of the European cases were reported in the later stages, “when
the immune system has already started to fail” and indicated that testing
strategies were not functioning properly in the region.

The report noted that the new cases in
the region to have increased by 19% over the last decade.

Contrastingly, the ECDC-monitored region,
that includes EU as well as Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway, saw a decline of 9%
in yearly diagnoses, and the estimate of the population living with undiagnosed
HIV is also set to be decreasing there.

The modes of transmission as well were
different, as sexual transmission between men was the most common cause of
transmission in the ECDC-monitored region, whereas heterosexual transmission
and intravenous drug usage was reported to be the most common cause in the WHO-monitored
eastern region.