Death of 'over seven thousand' AIDS patients in Iran over 30 years

Shokrallah Salmanzadeh, head of the Health Center of Khuzestan province, reported that 7,387 people with AIDS have died in Iran, of which 662 lived in Khuzestan province. According to ISNA, Salmanzadeh presented this 'cumulative statistic' at the World AIDS Day conference held on Monday, December 7, in Ahvaz. The cumulative statistic includes all patients and victims of this disease from 1986 to the present. Salmanzadeh announced that the number of known AIDS patients in Khuzestan is 2,332 and stated, 'The rate of AIDS infection is faster than the rate of treatment.' The number of AIDS-related deaths reported by this official comes at a time when the Ministry of Health had reported the number of victims to be about 3,409 by the second quarter of 2009. According to health officials, the transmission of the AIDS virus in Iran has accelerated through three main methods: shared syringe use, sexual relations, and from mother to child. Salmanzadeh expressed concern over the increase in AIDS patients due to 'risky sexual behavior,' stating that 'the transmission of HIV through sexual contact has doubled in the country.' Health officials in Iran identify women and children as two groups where the AIDS epidemic is expanding. On December 1 of this year, Minou Mohraz, head of the AIDS Research Center, announced that due to changes in the method of virus transmission, the rate of women infected with this disease in Iran has increased tenfold. Mohraz stated that the percentage of women with AIDS in Iran has reached 19%, which has also led to an increase in the number of children infected with this disease in the country. According to the Ministry of Health's report, transmission from mother to child constituted 3% of AIDS cases in 2013. The Ministry of Health of Iran reported 27,888 AIDS patients in 2013, of which 88.7% were men and 11.3% were women. In this context, Iran joined the international program 'Ending the AIDS Epidemic.'