1,233 Aids cases reported for 2012 in Saudi

The head of Saudi Arabia's Aids charity foundation says the country saw 1,233 new cases of the disease last year.

In remarks published on Tuesday in the state-owned Okaz newspaper, Dr. Sanaa bin Mustafa Flimban said 96 per cent of Aids patients in Saudi Arabia contracted Aids through sexual intercourse.

She added that a total of 850 Saudi women are infected in the kingdom, all of whom contracted the disease from their husbands. Eighty per cent discovered they had AIDS only after pregnancy.

The UNDP says nearly 10,000 cases of AIDS or HIV, the virus that causes it, have been reported in Saudi Arabia since 1986.

 

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