Conflict in Ukraine “has increased the spread of HIV”

The conflict east of Ukraine has increased the spread of the HIV virus across the country, a new study reveals.

Donjeck and Luhansk, the two major cities in the east, deeply influenced by the violence that erupted in 2014, are the largest HIV exporters in other parts of the country, the American magazine PNAS reports.

Ukraine has the highest HIV rate in Europe, with about 220,000 infected.

The study says the HIV crisis in Ukraine has become a silent <x0pidem <x0,8x1>, because half of the infected people are unaware that they have infections, and about 40 per cent of young diagnosis are in later stages of the disease.

To do the research, an international team of scientists, led by Oxford University, analyzed migration patterns in Ukraine in 2012-2015. They have found links between the movement of 1.7 million people displaced by war and the spread of HIV.

“The war has changed many things in Ukraine, and the HIV epidemic is one of them”, said the report's lead author, Tetyana Vasylieva, from Oxford University.

According to the study, new HIV infections are now mostly sex - related, compared to the 1990s, when drug injections are involved.