Copenhagen, Nov. 29 — One in seven people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, in Europe are unaware they are infected with the virus, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The report was published by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in advance of World AIDS Day held on December 1 each year to promote awareness and prevention of the disease.

The study explains this factor is one of the main reasons that the number of infections each year in Europe has remained stable over the past decade.

The number of people with HIV infections amounted to 29,747 last year, representing a rate of 6.3 per 100,000.

The report focuses on the 28 countries of the European Union, in addition to three countries from the European Economic Area; Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Sex between men remained the most common pattern of transmission for 42 percent of all cases in 2015, while sex between men and women constituted 32 percent, and injection drug use was responsible for 4 percent of transmissions in Europe.

The HIV-infected rate rises to 17.6 per 100,000 people when cases in all the countries in the European region are included. The region, which includes Russia and Turkey is made up of 53 countries and 900 million inhabitants.

A total of 153,407 people were newly diagnosed with HIV in 50 countries of the region in 2015. EFE