Moscow, Dec 1 (IANS): The HIV infection rate in Russia has dropped by 27 per cent over the last decade due to a notable increase in testing efforts, local media reported Sunday, citing the country's health authorities.

"In the past 10 years, the Russian Federation has seen a 27.1 per cent decrease in HIV infection rates. The risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV has been virtually eliminated in the country," said the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Well-Being, also known as Rospotrebnadzor.

"Thanks to systematic measures, more than 99 per cent of children born to HIV-positive mothers do not contract the virus," reports Xinhua, quoting the agency.

Rospotrebnadzor highlighted the expansion of the country's HIV testing programs. In 2023, 49 million blood samples were tested for HIV, a 74.8 per cent increase from 2014. During the first nine months of 2024, 38.5 million tests were conducted, a 6.8 per cent rise from the same period in 2023.