On October 8, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. In January-September, 64 new cases of HIV infection were detected in the Vitebsk region, Valentina Ananyeva, head of the AIDS Prevention Department of the Vitebsk Regional Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Public Health, told a BELTA correspondent. The growth rate compared to the same period last year is 108.5%. The incidence rate for the Vitebsk region over 9 months was 5.3 per 100,000 population (9 months of 2011 - 4.4) against the national rate of 9.1. In total, 736 cases of HIV infection have been registered in the region as of October 1, which is one of the lowest levels among all regions of the republic: 1991 cases were registered in Minsk, 6812 in the Gomel region, 1827 in the Minsk region, 804 in the Mogilev region, 1054 in the Brest region, and 570 in the Grodno region. The prevalence rate in the Vitebsk region was 49.4 against the national rate of 115.2. The most unfavorable districts in the region are Liozno district (rate per 100,000 population 208.8), Tolochin district (169.1 respectively), Gorodok district (132.6), Dubrovno district (88.2), Vitebsk district (83.5), Polotsk district (67.9), as well as Polotsk (120.6) and Vitebsk (68.9). The age structure is changing. The epidemic process mainly involves the working-age, fertile population aged 25-39 years (55.6% of cases, or 409 people). The proportion of infections in the age group over 30 years has significantly increased: from 36% in 2006 to 67.1% in 2011, and 50.8% in the 9 months of 2012. Valentina Ananyeva also noted a steady trend towards an increase in the proportion of sexual transmission of HIV (from 76% in 2006 to 78.1% in 2011). For the 9 months of the current year, the proportion of sexual transmission of infection was 93.7% (January-September 2011 - 76.3%). At the same time, an increase in the proportion of sexual transmission of HIV infection is observed among both the female and male populations. Along with this, a decrease in the proportion of parenteral infection was achieved in the period from 2006 to 2010. For the reporting period of 2012, the proportion of parenteral transmission was 6.2%.