Transcript
According to the United States Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think-tank, approximately 66% of Iranians with AIDS are infected through the sharing of contaminated needles.
In 2007, Iran’s Health Minister Baqeri Lankarani, said that there are nearly 14,000 HIV cases in Iran and that an estimated 1,700 have died of the disease.
As such, an article in America’s Washington Post newspaper states that a quarter of the heroin users in Iran are HIV positive.
Iran’s deputy health minister estimates that drug addiction is growing by nearly 8% a year and that some 20-thousand people in the country today are HIV positive.
The disease rate is growing in spite of efforts by the government and its medical sector.
Today, government clinics in every region offer free HIV testing and counseling. And last year, the medical sector produced an herbal medicine called IMOD developed to increase the body’s immunity.According to The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, use of contaminated needles is biggest factor for HIV infection within prisons in Iran.
Dr.Hamid Setayesh, coordinator of UNAIDS in Tehran, says more and more prisons are distributing sterilized syringes to inmates. The government is also reportedly handing out condoms to stem the tide of the deadly disease.
The UN says that there are about two million intravenous drug users in the country and 14- thousand cases of HIV/AIDS.
The government reports that besides needle-sharing, 28% of the virus infection is the result of “unknown causes” and 7.4% from sexual contact. In much of the rest of the world, sexual contact is the predominant reason.
