MOSCOW, Oct 22 (AFP) - AIDS cases are on the rise in Russia while figures fall in Western nations, the Federal AIDS Center said Friday.

A total of 12,000 new AIDS cases were registered in the country in the first nine months of year.

"While the number of AIDS contractions is reduced by 40 percent in the West, we see an opposite tendency here," the center's chairman Vadim Pokrovskiy said on Moscow Echo radio Friday.

Pokrovskiy isad that Russia lacks the widespread awareness campaigns run in Western countries.

AIDS cases in Russia are concentrated in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Siberian city of Irkutsk. The virus has mainly affected drug-users and their sexual partners, Pokrovskiy said.

There has also been a rise in drug adictions this year, triggered by a further rise in unemployment.

The report did not give a figure for the total number of AIDS cases in Russia.

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