870 people infected with HIV/AIDS in Albania

TIRANA, ALBANIA- Albania continues to maintain a low level of HIV/AIDS infection in 2015 but has raised awareness of curbing the spread of the disease nationwide.

The Albanian State Sanitary Inspectorate reported about 870 cumulative cases of HIV/AIDS in the country, Health Minister Ilir Beqaj said Wednesday at a meeting held on the occasion of the World AIDS Day that falls on Dec. 1.

“We should reduce this number and also we should offer people the needed treatment,” Albanian Daily News quoted Beqaj as saying.

Beqaj said that many Albanians are afraid to go to health centers for examinations and this is the main reason why the disease is not diagnosed in the initial phase.

According to the minister, studies showed that a considerable part of people infected with HIV are not aware they are carrier of the virus.

He said that HIV/AIDS remains an urban phenomenon in Albania because 72.

8 percent of the infected are from cities and 48 percent of them, from the capital of Tirana.