A Russian Health Ministry official says the HIV infection rate in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg has reached epidemic levels.

Tatyana Savinova, the first deputy chief of Yekaterinburg's health-care department in Yekaterinburg, said on November 2 that 1.8 percent of the city’s population is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

Experts have said that the real figure might be higher as not all HIV-affected people refer to medical institutions.

With 1.4 million inhabitants, Yekaterinburg is Russia’s fourth-largest city after Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk.

With reporting by ura.ru