TASHKENT, Nov 23, 2006 (AFP) - A United Nations agency report on the increase of people living with HIV in Uzbekistan is exaggerated, an Uzbek health official said Thursday rebuffing the estimate given by UNAIDS, the UN programme on HIV/AIDS.
"UNAIDS' report that there are an estimated 31,000 HIV cases in Uzbekistan is contrary to the real situation. Only 7,810 HIV cases have been registered in Uzbekistan since 1987," Bokijon Matkarimov, a health ministry official, told AFP.
A UNAIDS country report posted on its website says that "there has been a sharp increase in newly registered HIV/AIDS cases" since 2000 and the dominant mode of transmission was an injecting drug use.
"There is an increase in HIV cases..., but it is not a sharp increase," Matkarimov said, acknowledging that he had seen only a small part of the UNAIDS report.
He said the Uzbek government was making every effort to tackle the problem and that 15 AIDS centers and 212 hotlines were operating in the country.
An expert who wished not to be named said that government figures on the HIV cases reflected only those people who were officially registered by HIV/AIDS centres.
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