MOSCOW, November 23 /TASS/. Twenty-one children came down with the HIV virus in Russia from January to October 2016, Irina Shestakova, the Russian Health Ministry's chief free-lance expert on infectious diseases, stated at a news conference at TASS on Wednesday.

"There were cases when children were infected - 21 children during the whole year," she said.

Earlier, Shestakova referred to the figures provided by the Russian consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, which officially put the number of HIV-infection cases in Russia at 72,000 people. The morbidity rate in 26 Russian regions is twice that of the national average.

She also noted that more than 1,000 young people aged 15-20 pick up HIV annually, according to official statistics. "In 2015, 70% of young women and 52% of young men who were diagnosed to have HIV, got infected due to unprotected intimate contact," Shestakova clarified.