Analysis of information on the results of blood test for HIV antibodies in the Russian Federation

Objective. To study the time course of changes in the coverage of testing for HIV antibodies in the Russian Federation and in the structure of the surveyed contingents.

Materials and methods. The authors analyzed the data of Form No. 4 of the Federal Statistical Observation «Information on the Results of Blood Test for HIV antibodies», which contained the results of testing for HIV antibodies for the period 2011–2021.

Results. In the last 10 years, there has been an annual increase in the coverage of testing for HIV antibodies in the resident population of the Russian Federation from 17.3 to 27.8% of the average annual population of the country. The number of new-onset HIV infection ranged from 332.1 per 100,000 population in 2011 to 427.7 in 2015, and then decreased to 224.5 in 2021. At the same time, the proportion of people belonging to vulnerable population groups (drug users; men who have sex with men; prisoners; patients with sexually transmitted infections) decreased from 6.5% in 2011 to 3.1% in 2021. HIV infection was detected 10-27 times more often in the vulnerable groups than in the general population. The reference study revealed 91,169 positive results in the immune blot or PCR in those tested for HIV, which was 3.4% more in 2021 than in 2020. The population was 14.7% more frequently tested for HIV in 2021 than in 2020, that is, the testing coverage rate in Russia in 2021 returned to that in 2019. The women accounted for 54.6% of those tested in 2021; however, HIV infection was almost 2 times more commonly detected for the first time in men (302.7 HIV-positive ones per 100,000 surveyed) than that in women (157.1).

Conclusion. The HIV testing coverage rate is high in the Russian Federation, since 2016 there has been a trend towards a decrease in the detection rate of new HIV infection cases that are registered much more frequently among the vulnerable groups than in the general population, but the proportion of these groups among all those tested for HIV is insignificant and continues to decline.