Italy has more people reported suffering from Aids than any other western European country, according to a report recently released by the European Union commission, ahead of an international conference due to be held in Vilnius, the Capital of Lithuania on the 16 and 17 September. 140,000 people in Italy are being treated for Aids, 20,000 more than in France which has the second largest number of cases. The illness is principally being transmitted sexually but the incidence of infection in drug users from shared syringes is also high. The European commissioner, Pavel Telika, warned that the news of the success of some medicines in the treatment of Aids has caused a fall in the attention given to the problem. There were a total of 580,000 Aids sufferers in western Europe at the end of 2003, the number of Aids victims in eastern Europe is more than double this number.