India has second highest number of AIDS-HIV cases

["Ulhas Joglekar" <ulhasj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Friday
1 December 2000

India has second highest number of AIDS/HIV cases
NEW DELHI: India is the second largest country worldwide to be affected by
HIV/AIDS with 3.7 million infected people, according to the World Health
Organisation and the UNAIDS.
Leading the world in the list of most affected nations is South Africa with
3.8 million patients.
Though India has low prevalence rate of the disease with seven out of 1,000
people being affected by the epidemic, due to its huge population even low
HIV prevalence translated into a huge number of patients, according to the
latest figure on AIDS, released by the WHO on the eve of the Worlds AIDS Day
on Friday.
In the north-east, widespread injecting of drug, provided an entry point for
HIV. In Manipur, the prevalence of HIV infection among intravenous drug
users shot up from virtually nil in 1988 to over 65 per cent within the next
four years and has remained at this high level since then.
Most cases of infection among women appear to have been acquired from
husbands who had been infected by sex workers, who are part of a longer
chain of transmission. In other parts of the country, there was evidence
that unsafe sex was spreading HIV within the general population.
In view of the men's enormous potential to make a difference when it comes
to curbing HIV transmission, caring for infected family members and looking
after orphans and survivors of the epidemic, who has made 'Men make a
difference' the theme of this year's World AIDS Campaign.
At global level, HIV epidemic has become far more extensive than what was
predicted even a decade ago. UNAIDS and WHO have estimated that number of
people living with HIV/AIDS at the end of this year stood at 36.1 million
which was 50 per cent higher than what WHO's global programme on AIDS had
projected in 1991 on the basis of the data available.
An estimated 7,00,000 adults, of whom 4,50,000 were men, have become
infected in South and South-East Asia this year. However, East Asia and the
Pacific were mostly still keeping HIV at bay, with some 1,30,000 new
infections this year. Overall, the two regions combined were estimated to
have 6.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS.
The HIV prevalence rate was maximum at 8.8 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa
followed by the Carribean which has 2.3 per cent rate followed by North
America at 0.6 per cent and South and South-East Asia 0.56 per cent. East
Asia and Pacific have the least prevalence rate at 0.07 per cent, the report
said.
It said that the percentage of HIV positive adult women was maximum at 55
per cent in sub-Saharan Africa followed by North Africa and the Middle East
at 40 per cent, South and South-East Asia and the Carribean at 35 per cent
each. Latin America, eastern Europe and Central Asia and western Europe had
25 per cent women among the HIV positive adults while Australia and New
Zealand had the least at 10 per cent of women infected with HIV/AIDS.
In China the HIV/AIDS infections have increased from 5,800 in 1985 to
8,36,000 in 1999. With 100 million people or more on the move and a steep
rise in the sexually-transmitted infections, the country faces the AIDS
challenge at a much higher level.
Myanmar is already in the throes of a major epidemic, while Cambodia has the
highest HIV prevalence in the region fuelled by sexual transmission against
the background of social and economic fragility.
A number of factors like intravenous drug use, commercial sex, low literacy,
dependency of women, lack of access to information and services and
population mobility have played a significant role in Asia and are likely to
continue having an impact in the region.(UNI)
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