The adult mortality²² rate in 2004 is reported as 205/1000 population for males and 113/1000 for females.²³

In Azerbaijan, the WHO World Health Report (2006) indicates a life expectancy at birth of 63 years for males; 68 years for females (Table 4). Healthy life expectancy is 55.8 years for males; 58.7 years for females.²⁴

Table 4: Population life expectancy at birth, Commonwealth of Independent States (plus Mongolia) (2004)

Source: WHO World Health Report 2006

In 2006, UNAIDS reports:

‘The epidemics in Eastern Europe and Central Asia continue to grow and are affecting ever-larger parts of societies in this region. The number of people living with HIV in this region reached an estimated 1.6 million in 2005 - an increase of almost twenty-fold in less than ten years. AIDS claimed almost twice as many lives in 2005, compared with 2003, and killed an estimated 62,000 adults and children. Some 270,000 people were newly infected with HIV in the past year. The overwhelming majority of people living with HIV in this region are young; 75% of the reported infections between 2000 and 2004 were in people younger than 30 years (in Western Europe, the corresponding figure was 33%).’²⁵

UNAIDS also specifically highlight the increase in HIV infections in Azerbaijan:

‘By the end of 2004, Azerbaijan reported 718 HIV cases; 111 of these had been reported with AIDS, including 50 who died. Three quarters of the HIV cases notifications included a known route of transmission; 60% of them had been infected through injecting drug use. In 2004, 121 new HIV cases were reported; of the 87% that identified the transmission mode, 66% had been infected through injecting drug use. Available data suggest that 45% of people living with HIV were infected outside of the country, mainly in the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Eighty per cent of all HIV cases are among men. The majority of HIV cases (44.3%) are registered in Baku, the capital. The dominant mode of transmission there is injecting drug use (63% of cases with a known transmission route). Local traditions prohibit women from actively seeking care for HIV/AIDS or other STIs, a situation compounded by a general lack of access to HIV testing and counselling. A mandatory HIV testing policy no longer exists in Azerbaijan, and as of 2003, about 2.3% of the population had been tested. Results from a WHO-supported survey conducted in late 2003 show an HIV prevalence of 16.5% among IDUs (13% in Baku and 19.5% in Lenkoran) and a hepatitis C prevalence rate of 55%. These figures are much higher than the routinely collected surveillance data. The most affected group is the so-called street IDUs, a group that remains outside the focus of national HIV prevention and care efforts. Prevalence in this group is 12 times higher than among IDUs registered at narcology centres in Baku. In Lenkoran, all known PLWHA were street IDUs. The number of opiate users is very high in Azerbaijan, and is estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to be around 0.2% of the adult population, of which 50-60% inject heroin. HIV prevalence among female sex workers is around 8.5%. The prevalence of other STIs is also quite high, e.g. syphilis 9% and Chlamydia 63%. Condom use rates remain very low’.²⁶