On the eve of the World AIDS day, that was celebrated on Dec. 1st, 2010, VTSIOM (Russian public opinion research center) has introduced a digest of researches dedicated to AIDS and HIV problems.

6% of Russians have HIV-positive friends. This index is higher in North-Western region and among wealthier people (10% each).

Researchers noticed a positive trend of the increasing rate of the population informed about the ways of infecting. More respondents admit that infecting can be prevented when having sexual contacts with permanent partner (70 to 81% this year), using condoms for each contact (52 to 67% this year). More people get to know that a healthy looking person can also be HIV-positive (from 65% in April 2009 to 74% this year) and that it is impossible to get infected when bitten by a mosquito (46 to 51%). The fact that sharing food with HIV-positive person is safe is also known to most of the respondents (55%, the same as previous year).

The rules of interacting with HIV-positive people and means of AIDS prophylaxis - this is the information people feel the lack of (30% of respondents told they would like to know more about it).

Among other most important topics for Russian people are the ways of getting infected and the consequences of the infection itself (22% each), what is AIDS (21%) and what is HIV (20%). Most of the people who show interest in these topics are the ones who personally got acquainted with AIDS carriers.

The measure of governmental attention to HIV problems is more accepted by Russians now (35% March 2007 against 44% in 2009). This opinion is shared mostly among people 18-24 years of age (50%). Meanwhile the part of Russians who think that the government takes little effort in this direction is decreasing (52 to 43% accordingly), which was announced in the press-release issued by VTSIOM.