The statement followed publication on Tuesday of findings by the United Nations AIDS program which showed that new HIV infections overall had fallen by 35 percent since the peak of the three-decade-old pandemic in 2000.
"Heterosexual transmission is responsible for the increase in eastern Europe, and transmission through drug injection remains substantial," the joint statement by the WHO and ECDC said.
ECDC spokeswoman Caroline Daamen said "eastern Europe" referred to the eastern part of WHO`s European Region, where the organizations said the number of new HIV cases had more than doubled in the past decade.
Apart from Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia, this region also includes countries of the Transcaucasus.
"In the EU and the EEA, sex between men is the predominant mode of HIV transmission. Two in three new HIV infections are among native-born Europeans," the organizations said.
In the European Union generally, the number of people diagnosed with HIV was roughly unchanged over the past decade, ECDC`s Daamen said.
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