MOSCOW - Russia has managed to halt the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after five years of declining infection rates, the head of the national health and epidemic watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said. “The growth rate dropped from 13 percent in 2013 to only 2 percent in 2017 and reached minus 2 percent in the first 10 months of this year, meaning we have successfully stopped the viral spread,” Anna Popova told reporters.