The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in India has shown a steep rise, prompting experts and government officials to call for urgent action.
The latest figures show that up to 4.58 million Indians may have the devastating virus. The statistics were released by India鈥檚 National AIDS Control Organisation on Friday, the eve of India鈥檚 first-ever national convention to address the issue.
The estimated number of HIV-positive Indians at the end of 2002 was 15 per cent higher than the 3.97 million cases the year before.
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鈥淗IV/AIDS in India is not only confined to high-risk groups and in cities, but is gradually spreading into rural areas and the general population,鈥� Meenakshi Datta Ghosh, NACO project director told reporters in New Delhi.
鈥淚ndia is the home to the Asia鈥檚 largest epidemic,鈥� warns Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS. Writing in The Hindustan Times, he adds: 鈥淎bout four million Indians now have HIV, and 300,000 more become infected each year. Yet the nation is still coming to terms with the perception that the disease is limited to prostitutes and sex workers.鈥�
Male majority
The majority of infections 鈥� over 60 per cent 鈥� are among males, says Ghosh. This is fairly typical of relatively low level HIV/AIDS epidemics, says Karen Stanecki, senior adviser on demographic data at UNAIDS in Geneva, Switzerland.
鈥淭his is because in low-level concentrated epidemics you have a higher prevalence among sex workers and their clients, and injecting drug users,鈥� she told New 杏吧原创. Men tend to be injecting drug users more often than women.
Stanecki points out that the proportion of cases in India鈥檚 one billion strong population is still small, but she says the figures indicate a 鈥渟teady rise鈥�. More prevention programmes need to be implemented or strengthened to stem the epidemic, she says.
Antenatal clinics
The new figures come from a sentinel surveillance programme, which surveys antenatal clinics, sexually transmitted infection clinics and a number of sex-worker and injecting drug user populations.
Stanecki says that antenatal clinics are known to be a 鈥済ood surrogate鈥� for sampling a general population.
The survey showed in particular that HIV/AIDS rates among pregnant women have risen. 鈥淭he HIV prevalence rates among pregnant women have crossed the one percent mark in states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Nagaland, and Tamil Nadu,鈥� says Ghosh.
