HIV cases drop by 56% in city after awareness
On the occasion of World Aids Day, the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society released a report stating that in the last seven years, the city has witnessed 56 per cent decline in the number cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) cases. A senior doctor said cases has been dropped due to awareness which was spread across the city and people use to opt for early diagnosis.
According to the statistics, in 2010-11, about 14,291 people were diagnosed with HIV in Mumbai as compared to that of just 6718 in 2016-17. “According to World Health Organization (WHO), 36.7 million people were affected with HIV in 2016. In the last two decades, there has been decreased in the number of newly infected HIV cases,” said doctor.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) also claims that a massive expansion of Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has reduced the global number of people dying from HIV. In Mumbai, currently, 35,987 people have been put on ART. “The government has taken several initiatives to eliminate HIV, but still the scenario remains the same,” said official.
“There has been a decrease in the number of HIV positive cases in a highrisk group. 36,000 patients are on life-long Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART). The use of social media by a large number of citizens is making it difficult for us to increase the awareness level and give out factual information to the masses,” said Dr Padmaja Keskar, executive health officer.
Dr Shrikala Acharya, additional project director of MDACS, said, “When we look 10 years back and now, we can see that there has been a lot of gap between the use of social media. These days, WhatsApp groups and forward messages can create negative impact too. Through our centres we try to reach out to people directly at specific locations, but we can’t reach out to people through virtual media.”
MDACS also reveals that the number of newly infected pregnant women declined from 466 in 2010-11 to 162 in 2016-17.
There has been 56 per cent decline new HIV infection in the last seven years.
79 per cent of newly infected HIV is between the age group of 15-49 years and 36 per cent of newly infected HIV cases were found in women.
There has been a 65 per cent decline in the number of HIV infected pregnant women whereas 36, 331 are living with the Antiretroviral therapy (ART). 93 per cent people are infected due to unsafe sex.