, May 17, Asia-Plus - Seven Tajiks have died of AIDS so far this year, Republican AIDS Center Director Azamjon Mirzoyev said.  

According to him, 33 fatal cases have been reported among HIV-sufferers in Tajikistan since 1992, when the first case of AIDS/HIV was registered in the country.  Mr. Mirzoyev says injecting drug users have accounted for 70 percent of those who died of AIDS in Tajikistan .  

On the number of HIV-infected individuals in Dushanbe , Azamjon Mirzoyev has noted that 190 cases of HIV have to date been registered in the Tajik capital; of them, 19 cases have been reported since the beginning of this year.  

In total, more than 500 cases of HIV-infection have been registered officially in the country by the time of being.  However, according to unofficial data, the actual number of HIV-sufferers in Tajikistan is much higher that the official figure and amounts to not less than 7,000 people.  

According to statement of the United Nations and donor organizations, the number of HIV-sufferers may increase by other 3,000 people during this year.  “If the number of HIV-sufferers in Tajikistan will have made one percent of the country’s population by 2008, it will mean the initial stage of the AIDS/HIV epidemic,” the statement said.