The growing HIV epidemic in Central Europe: a neglected issue?

The number of new cases of HIV infection has been decreasing in some parts of the world (e.g. sub-Saharan Africa) with the highest burden of disease in recent years. However, other regions are showing a different trend, such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. This trend seems also to apply to the Central European region. This article analyses HIV data for Central Europe derived from annual surveillance reports of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and gives an overview of the recent status of the epidemic in this specific region. We show that, although still at a low level, the HIV epidemic in Central Europe continues to grow and requires more resources and interventions to curtail the ongoing epidemic.