The Hindu : Alarming news on AIDS front

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 27, 2003

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National

Alarming news on AIDS front

By N. Gopal Raj

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM NOV. 26. There is no "persuasive evidence'' yet that the AIDS epidemic in India is being controlled in individual States, let alone in the country as a whole, according to the 2003 update released by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organisation.

By the end of 2002, 3.82 to 4.58 million people in India were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. At least, 300,000 more have acquired the infection in the past year, says the report which was released on Tuesday."Serious epidemics'' are under way in several States, including Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, where more than half the sex workers are infected and in Manipur, where HIV prevalence among the injecting drug users is over 60 per cent, according to the report.Nor is the infection confined to vulnerable groups or urban areas. It is gradually spreading to rural areas.

In Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur and Nagaland, the HIV prevalence rates among pregnant women have crossed the one per cent threshold.In Gujarat and Goa, the prevalence among high-risk groups is above five per cent, though it is still below one per cent among pregnant women.Not enough is known about the spread of HIV in U.P. and other northern States, where HIV surveillance now provides only an incomplete picture. .

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