European HIV & AIDS Statistics Summary

As of the end of December 2006 there have been 327,068 reported AIDS diagnoses in Europe. More than half of these people have already died. The 50 countries that have national HIV reporting systems had reported 806,258 HIV diagnoses by the end of 2006.

Because a large proportion of HIV infections, AIDS cases and deaths are never reported, the above figures understate the true extent of the epidemic. In addition, the reliability of reporting systems varies between countries, making comparisons difficult. It is therefore useful to look at estimates based on surveys as well as reported cases.

According to UNAIDS estimates, around 2.4 million people were living with HIV in Europe and Central Asia at the end of 2007.¹ Estimated HIV prevalence (the proportion of adults living with HIV) varies from below 0.1% in parts of Central Europe to above 1% in parts of the former Soviet Union.²

Across the continent, HIV infections through heterosexual contact are increasing steadily and women account for a rising proportion of cases.

Western Europe

A cumulative total of 275,570 HIV infections had been reported in 22 countries of Western Europe by the end of 2006. This considerably understates the true figure because not all prevalent HIV infections have been diagnosed or reported. This is partly because many people do not know that they are infected. In addition, the three countries with the most extensive epidemics either do not report from all regions (Italy and Spain) or started reporting only in 2003 (France). National HIV reporting started at different dates in different countries, without systematic retrospective reporting of infections diagnosed in previous years.

According to UNAIDS estimates, the largest numbers of people living with HIV in Western Europe in 2005 were in Italy (150,000), Spain (140,000) and France (130,000).³

Of the 25,241 people with newly diagnosed HIV reported in the West in 2006,

54% probably acquired HIV through heterosexual contact
37% were men who had sex with men
8% were injecting drug users
35% were female

Heterosexual contact has been the most frequent transmission mode in the West since 1999. It is responsible for the largest proportion of diagnosed HIV infections in every country except Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, in which men who have sex with men form the largest transmission group. Heterosexual transmission predominates even in Portugal, which has a particularly severe HIV epidemic among injecting drug users.

Trends in HIV incidence may be examined in countries that have a history of reporting. For 13 of the 23 countries in the West, HIV reporting data are available at least since 1999. In these countries, the number of newly diagnosed HIV infections rose slowly between 1999 and 2001, before increasing by 29% between 2001 and 2002. Since then it has grown by between 6% and 11% per year. The total for 2006 was nearly twice that for 1999.

The rise in these 13 countries is due to substantial increases in diagnoses among heterosexuals and men who have sex with men. In contrast, the number of cases among injecting drug users has remained more or less stable.

Recently there has been a sharp rise in the number of cases reported in the UK. More information on the UK is available in AVERT.org's UK statistics summary.

Data on the original country in which infection occurred is available for 16 countries. According to these data, 54% of infections reported in 2006 originated from the country of report, and 32% were acquired in sub-Saharan Africa.

HIV prevalence surveys have found that 10-20% of men who have sex with men in Western Europe are infected with HIV. Prevalence among pregnant women is below 0.3% in all countries.

Western European country	HIV diagnoses in 2006 (or 2005)	Rate per million in 2006 (or 2005)	Cumulative total, end 2006	Adult HIV prevalence 2005²
Andorra†	1	14.9	42	-
Austria	435	53.0	3,705	0.3%
Belgium	995	95.3	18,890	0.3%
Denmark	245	45.0	4,746	0.2%
Finland	195	37.1	2,082	0.1%
France††	5,750	91.9	20,677	0.4%
Germany	2,718	32.9	29,017	0.1%
Greece	569	51.1	8,164	0.2%
Iceland	11	37.0	195	0.2%
Ireland	337	80.0	4,419	0.2%
Israel	336	49.1	4,999	<0.2%
Italy‡	(1,460)*	(74.4)*	(6,322)*	0.5%
Luxembourg	56	118.9	770	0.2%
Malta†	29	71.9	65	0.1%
Monaco	-	-	-	-
Netherlands	1,070	65.4	12,730	0.2%
Norway	271	58.4	3,496	0.1%
Portugal	2,162	205.0	30,366	0.4%
San Marino	2	70.6	57	-
Spain‡‡	(952)*	(68.8)*	3,182	0.6%
Sweden	377	41.6	7,477	0.2%
Switzerland	757	104.2	29,353	0.4%
United Kingdom	8,925	148.8	84,816	0.2%
Total	25,241	-	275,570	0.3%

- data not available

* 2005 data

† Andorra and Malta began reporting in 2004

†† France began reporting in 2003

‡ Italy reports cases from only 10 of its 20 regions/provinces

‡‡ Spain reports cases from only 8 of its regions

AIDS statistics have been as geographically varied in the West as in Europe as a whole. In 2006, the highest rates of AIDS diagnoses were reported by Portugal (65.8 per million population) and Spain (35.0). Each of Spain, France and Italy has reported more than 55,000 AIDS cases since the beginning of the epidemic.

An estimated 6,462 AIDS cases were diagnosed in the West in 2006. After falling dramatically in the late 1990s (following the introduction and widespread use of combination antiretroviral treatment), AIDS incidence has declined steadily in recent years. The total for 2006 was 41% lower than that for 1999.

AIDS mortality has also decreased as antiretroviral therapy has become widely available. As new diagnoses outnumber deaths, the number of people living with AIDS continues to rise.

Central Europe

A total of 1,805 HIV infections and an estimated 530 AIDS cases were diagnosed in the Centre in 2006.

Central Europe has been relatively spared by the epidemic, with the incidence of both AIDS cases and newly diagnosed HIV infections remaining low. However, this region accounts for the largest proportion of paediatric AIDS cases following an outbreak of infection among young children in hospitals in Romania around 1990.

Central European country	HIV diagnoses in 2006	Rate per million in 2006	Cumulative total, end 2006	Adult HIV prevalence 2005²
Albania	32	10.2	211	<0.2%
Bosnia & Herzegovina	17	4.3	133	<0.1%
Bulgaria	91	11.9	689	<0.1%
Croatia	66	14.5	604	<0.1%
Cyprus	34	40.3	518	<0.2%
Czech Republic	93	9.1	920	0.1%
Hungary	81	8.0	1,366	0.1%
Macedonia, F.Y.R	17	8.3	96	<0.1%
Montenegro	4	6.4	68	0.2%*
Poland	750	19.5	10,555	0.1%
Romania	180	8.3	6,613	<0.1%
Serbia	89	11.8	2,104	0.2%*
Slovakia	27	5.0	185	<0.1%
Slovenia	34	17.3	316	<0.1%
Turkey	290	3.9	2,544	<0.2%
Total	1,805	-	26,922	0.1%

- data not available

* data for Serbia and Montenegro combined

Eastern Europe

By the end of 2006, a cumulative total of 503,766 HIV diagnoses had been reported by the 15 countries of the former Soviet Union. The Russian Federation accounted for 73% of these cases. These reports represent just a small fraction of the real epidemic. According to UNAIDS, around 1.5 million people were living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the end of 2005, of whom 940,000 were in Russia and 410,000 in Ukraine.⁴

After increasing steeply for several years, the number of new HIV diagnoses peaked in 2001 at just under 100,000. There then followed annual declines of 39% in 2002 and 17% in 2003, since when there has been a slight increase. The fall was due to a sharp drop in the number of cases amongst injecting drug users. However, the number of cases attributed to heterosexual contact has continued to rise - there were more than twice as many reports in 2006 as in 2002.

Of the 59,866 new diagnoses of HIV reported in 2006, only 60% were reported with a transmission group. Of these, 62% were in injecting drug users, 37% were from heterosexual infections, and less than 1% were in men who have sex with men. The latter figure is probably artificially low due to homophobic discrimination making men unwilling to state how they were infected.

Injecting drug use has become unusually widespread amongst young people, especially young men. UNAIDS estimates that 1% of the population in the Russian Federation and other parts of the former Soviet Union is injecting drugs. Given the high odds of transmission through needle sharing, the fact that the young people are also sexually active, the lack of motivated HIV prevention work and the high levels of sexually transmitted infections in the wider population, a massive HIV & AIDS epidemic may be unavoidable.

UNAIDS estimates that HIV prevalence among adults exceeds 1% in Estonia, Ukraine, Moldova and Russia.⁵

Eastern European country	HIV diagnoses in 2006	Rate per million in 2006	Cumulative total, end 2006	Adult HIV prevalence 2005²
Armenia	66	21.9	429	0.1%
Azerbaijan	242	28.6	965	0.1%
Belarus	733	75.6	7,747	0.3%
Estonia	668	504.2	5,731	1.3%
Georgia	276	62.2	1,156	0.2%
Kazakhstan	1,745	117.8	7,402	0.1%
Kyrgyzstan	244	45.8	1,070	0.1%
Latvia	299	130.3	3,631	0.8%
Lithuania	100	29.3	1,200	0.2%
Republic of Moldova	621	148.0	3,464	1.1%
Russian Federation†	39,207	275.1	369,187	1.1%
Tajikistan	204	31.0	710	0.1%
Turkmenistan	0	0.0	2	<0.1%
Ukraine†	13,256	288.3	91,057	1.4%
Uzbekistan	2,205	81.7	10,015	0.2%
Total	59,866	-	503,766	0.8%

- data not available

† Excluding mother-to-child cases

It is likely that in several countries in the East, AIDS is grossly under-reported. From the available statistics it appears that AIDS incidence in the East, which was previously extremely low, is now increasing rapidly. The number of newly reported diagnoses more than tripled from 1,781 in 2002 to 6,208 in 2006. This is essentially due to an increase in Ukraine, which has accounted for 75% of all AIDS cases reported in the East in the last five years.

More information on this region can be found in the page HIV & AIDS in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Notes

The latest HIV & AIDS statistics for Europe were published in late 2007 by EuroHIV (European Centre for the Epidemiological Monitoring of AIDS). The next data are due mid-2008.

There is often a delay between the time of diagnosis of HIV or AIDS, or the time of death, and the time at which the event is reported. The statistics referred to as estimates on this page have been adjusted for such reporting delays. No adjustments have been made for incomplete reporting. None of the data in tables have been adjusted.