Number of HIV-infected cases in Iran: True or just an iceberg

BACKGROUND: The number of HIV cases in Iran is increasing. Knowledge of the changing epidemiology of HIV is fundamental for service planning and prevention activities. This study aims to estimate the number of HIV-infected cases by the capture and recapture method for size estimation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From 2002 to 2009, we used three different centers – hospitals, the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) center, and a central prison in Fars Province for data retrieval. The overlaps between these centers were investigated to determine the true estimate of HIV cases. Finally, interactions were analyzed by a linear logarithm model with STATA version 9 software. RESULTS: We observed 5167 HIV cases. The number of males was ten times more than that of females. The most frequent age range was between 15 and 44 years. The majority of cases (n = 3347) were retrieved from the VCT center. The least number of infected persons were located in the prison and hospitals. The estimated number of cases in Fars Province was 14,925 from 2002 to 2009. The best model consisted of three sources. CONCLUSION: Covering the system of medicine deputy for registering the number of infected cases with HIV is poor in Iran. Improvements in making arrangements for enhancing the quality of data related to HIV-infected cases are essential for solving this problem and must be on the agenda for medical policymaking.