In 2008 in Eastern Europe there were a reported 25,542 newly diagnosed HIV infections. However, this number does not include figures from the Russian Federation, where nearly 55,000 new HIV cases were reported in 2008. The Ukraine has the second highest number of annual infections; in 2008 15,671 were reported. However, these figures do not represent the true extent of the epidemic. UNAIDS estimates that 110,000 people became infected with HIV in 2007, and of the 1.5 million people living with HIV in the region, around 90 percent live in either the Russian Federation (69%) or the Ukraine (29%).

Of the new HIV diagnoses in 2008 (where data on transmission routes were available):

45% resulted from injecting drug use;
44% were acquired through heterosexual transmission;
0.5% were men who had sex with men;
15% were aged 15-24 years;
and 41% were female.
In addition to the Russian Federation and the Ukraine, high rates of HIV are reported in Estonia (406/million) and the Republic of Moldova (219/million). Rates of newly diagnosed HIV infections have generally declined in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan rates have significantly increased since 2003/4.