Iran fights rise in sexually transmitted HIV
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Sexually transmitted HIV infections are on the rise in Iran and the Islamic Republic is setting up telephone hotlines to help fight the problem, a senior official said in comments published on Tuesday.
Injecting drug users are the main risk group in Iran, which is on a heroin smuggling route to the West from Afghanistan, but officials are also concerned about the number of people who are infected with the AIDS virus through sexual contacts.
It is a sensitive issue in the conservative Islamic state, which bans sex outside marriage, but U.N. officials have praised the authorities for the way they are tackling the virus, for example by urging drug addicts to seek treatment.
“In recent years the incidence of AIDS virus contraction through sexual contact has increased,” said Abbas Sedaghat, who heads the Health Ministry AIDS office.
“There are indications that the AIDS contraction model in Iran is changing from shared syringes toward sexual contacts,” he was quoted as saying by the Etemad newspaper.