CREATING AWARENESS: The Union Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, along with Director General, National AIDS Council of India, M Y Quairashy, addressing a Press conference to release the HIV surveillance figures in New Delhi on Tuesday. Photo: V.V. Krishnan

NEW DELHI: There is good news for India on the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) front: the number of new HIV infections for the year 2004-05 has increased by only about 28,000 as against 5.2 lakhs the last year. The total HIV infection figure now stands at 5.134 million in comparison to 5.106 million reported in 2003-04.

In absolute numbers, India continues to have the most number of cases after South Africa, which has 5.3 million HIV infected persons. In terms of percentage, India has an HIV prevalence of 0.91 per cent among the adult population as compared to 21.5 per cent in South Africa, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).

Not `complacent'

"Figures do not matter for us. We know we have an HIV/AIDS epidemic and we do not want to be complacent because it has taken a lot of effort to reach the present situation," Health and Family Welfare Minister A. Ramadoss told presspersons here on Wednesday.

"While 1,114 HIV/AIDS-related deaths were reported in 2004-05, 1,514 deaths were reported in 2003-04. "The decrease in the number of fresh cases can be attributed to major steps taken by the Government in creating awareness and introducing the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) treatment. Free ART treatment will be started in 100 hospitals in the coming days and I will personally visit the six high prevalence States," Mr. Ramadoss said.

Topping the list of "high prevalence States" was Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (stable since last year), Manipur and Nagaland while "medium prevalence States" included Goa, Gujarat and Pondicherry. The list of "highly vulnerable States" has Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Uttaranchal in it.

The trends across the country show that there is no galloping HIV epidemic in India as there is no evidence of an upsurge in HIV prevalence. However, there are regional epidemics in various parts, with high prevalence of HIV among both the Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) clinic attendees and ante-natal clinic attendees.

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