[Ip-health] Doubts over India's Aids figures

[Tahir Amin]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
 Doubts over India's Aids figures
* Current estimates for the number of people in India with the HIV/Aids
figures could be greatly exaggerated, a leading Aids worker says. *

The UN says 5.7 million people in India have the HIV virus, the highest
number in the world.

But Ashok Alexander, of the anti-Aids Avahan organisation says figures due
out soon could be "substantially lower", the Associated Press reports.

The BBC has learned that the figure could be as low as three million.

Experts say that the discrepancy between 5.7 million and three million could
only be explained by errors in the methods of calculating the numbers of
people with the HIV virus.

India is about to embark on a new and expanded phase of its Aids control
programme, with increased funding from the government and from international
donors.

* 'Substantially lower' *

"The actual number we've come up with in aggregate is likely to be lower,
and perhaps substantially lower," Ashok Alexander, director of Avahan, the
Indian programme of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said, the
Associated Press news agency reports.

  Mr Alexander said the new estimates were likely to be more accurate
because they came from pre-natal clinics, high risk groups and from the
government's National Family Health Survey.

He said that this was a far more accurate way of collating the figures than
previous estimates which only relied on details provided by pre-natal
clinics.

Mr Alexander declined to speculate on what the new total would be, pointing
out that data is still being assessed and exact details will not be
available for a few more weeks.

* Backward *

Last week, India health officials said they were alarmed by the growing
numbers of pregnant women infected with HIV/Aids in the northern states of
Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar.

They are among India's most backward, with huge populations but poor
literacy and health services.

Officials say workers who migrate to cities in search of work bring the
infection back to the states with them.

They said that unless the state governments got serious about tackling the
disease, there could be an Aids epidemic.

 Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6735155.stm

Published: 2007/06/08 16:17:51 GMT

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