New HIV cases in Hungary expected to top 100 in 2006

Since 1988, December 1 has been recognized as "World AIDS day" - a day when the victims of AIDS are remembered worldwide. According to Eszter Újhelyi, the secretary general of the Hungarian National AIDS Committee (Nemzeti AIDS Bizottság), the number of new registered HIV cases in Hungary will probably be over 100 this year, for the second year in row, reports mno.hu.

Újhelyi believes both the Hungarian public and doctors need to know more about the disease. Often patients wander from hospital to hospital for months and years with different symptoms of their disease, but because of a lack of training, some physicians don't recognize AIDS. The public at large is also uneducated both about the infection and on ways to prevent it.

For the first time in 20 years, the number of newly-registered HIV infections was over 100 in Hungary in 2005, a trend that will probably be repeated in 2006.

Until the end of September, 60 new cases of HIV were documented in Hungary this year, but Újhelyi said statistics show that infections increase in the second part of the year, as many people contract the disease on holiday during the summer. In Hungary, as abroad, those working in the porn industry, prostitutes, drug users and gay men are particularly at risk.

Hungary has a relatively low number of HIV cases and the explosion in infections that occurred in Ukraine, Romania and the Baltic states didn't happen here, said Dr. János Szlávik, resident pediatrician at Szent László kórház in Budapest. As of now, there are 1,340 HIV patients in the country. Over the last 20 years, 500 cases of AIDS have been reported, and 200 of the patients are still alive.

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