Moscow ? Some 26,000 people have contracted HIV, the virus causing AIDS, in Russia since the beginning of this year, a Russian health agency said Monday.

“There are more than 353,000 registered HIV carriers in Russia today, including some 26,000 infected this year,” the Federal Service for the Supervision of Consumer Rights and Human Welfare said in a news release.

However, according to independent Russian experts and international organizations, the actual number of HIV carriers in the country may be close to a million.

In earlier reports, the agency, known by its Russian acronym Rospotrebnadzor, said some 24,390 new HIV cases were detected in the country between January and September 2006, a 5 percent increase, year-on-year.