One thing he is sure of is the need to hide his HIV status from society when his last employer found out, he lost his job.Īccording to figures just released by the World Health Organisation and UNAids, more than 103,000 new cases of HIV were reported in Russia in 2016, an increase of 5% over the previous year, and it is estimated that there are another 500,000 undiagnosed cases. Ivanov says that since his diagnosis he has spent his time researching the virus and now feels “in a state of confusion”. “I didn’t worry about it because I’d seen a TV programme that denied the existence of HIV.”
Because of this, he had had unprotected sex with a man who had told him he was HIV positive. Diagnosed HIV positive in March, he says he was calm when he heard the news as he was not convinced HIV existed.
