Vasily Akimkin, director of Rospotrebnadzor’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, cited 27 regions where HIV had reached the general population, Medvestnik reported, but the figure’s data year is unstated.
Akimkin spoke at a conference in Moscow on Oct. 15–16, 2026. The institute confirmed the event, but its published account contains neither the 27-region count nor a list of regions or the period it covers. Without that information, the conference figure cannot establish how many regions meet the classification now.
Under World Health Organization (WHO) guidance, an HIV rate that stays above 1% among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics is an indicator of a generalized epidemic. The threshold concerns the women surveyed; it is not an estimate of HIV prevalence among every resident of a region.
In a study of 2021, institute researchers placed 27 regions in the generalized-epidemic category. HIV prevalence among pregnant women in those regions ranged from 1% to 2.6%. A separate analysis of official 2024 data by “Если быть точным” found 14 regions above the 1% threshold that year, including 11 where the rate had remained above it for several years.
The two studies describe different years. Akimkin’s conference figure cannot establish whether the regional count has risen since the 2024 analysis because the period behind his figure was not specified.
National figures measure other parts of Russia’s HIV epidemic. Rospotrebnadzor recorded 45,638 newly registered cases in 2025. Institute researchers counted 1,231,822 Russian citizens living with a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis as of Dec. 31, 2025. The first figure counts new registrations; the second counts people living with a confirmed diagnosis.
The researchers reported that 53,849,891 blood samples from Russian citizens were tested for HIV in 2025, up 3.5% from 2024. They said a shift toward testing the general population and away from groups at higher risk affects how falling detection rates should be interpreted.
The institute estimated that HIV caused more than 279 billion rubles in economic damage in 2025. It identified prevention, diagnosis and treatment as areas where Russia could improve its response.
