HIV prevalence among adults down
NEWDELHI: The prevalence of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, among adults has gone down from 0.26% in 2015 to 0.22% of the population in 2017, according to the National AIDS Control Organisation’s latest estimates released on Friday.
India has 21.40 lakh people who are living with HIV/AIDS as compared to 21.17 in 2015. Maharashtra is home to the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS, with 15% people belonging to the state. Around 69,110 died of Aidsrelated causes in 2017, according to NACO’INDIA HIV Estimations 2017.
The prevalence continues to remain high in the north-eastern states, with Mizoram having the highest prevalence of 2.04% among adults aged 15 and 49 years.
“The prevalence has gone down marginally and if we look at the data, it almost looks like the numbers have stagnated. However, the last mile is always harder. We are putting in more efforts to reach the invisible population,” said Sanjeeva Kumar, director general of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
The report states that even though the national prevalence rate is declining, there are a lot of variations in the trends among states and regions.
For example, in the north-east, the prevalence is more than 1% in Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland. Though the prevalence in Manipur reached a peak of around 3% in 1999, in Nagaland it has remained stable at around 1%, while it continues to rise in Mizoram.
For the remaining states in the region, the prevalence is less than the national average.
“The new HIV/AIDS policy will ensure that people living with HIV get timely treatment. It will be the responsibility of the state too to ensure that medicine shortages, like the one that has been happening over the last couple of months, do not happen. The decriminalisation of homosexuality would further mean that more and more people would come out to get tested and seek treatment,” said Paul Lhungdim, president of Delhi Network of Positive People.
More than 87, 000 people get new HIV infections in India annually, according to the report.