AIDS researchers in Russia say the number of new HIV infections rose nearly 10 percent this year.
Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Russia's federal AIDS research center, said 48,363 new cases were reported the first 10 months of the year, up 9.6 percent from the same period in 2010, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday.
Russia has documented 636,979 confirmed cases of human immunodeficiency virus since 1987, with nearly half of the cases reported since 2006, researchers said.
The World Health Organization's 2011 World Health Statistics report says an estimated 33.3 million people worldwide were living with HIV in 2009.
Source: UPI