Indian government put the figure of people suffering from HIV/AIDS in the country at 2.5 million, a drastic reduction of around 50 per cent from last year.
Announcing the revised figure, Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said the prevalence appears to be less than the previous estimate of 0.9 per cent.
“The results show that there are an estimated two million to 3.1 million people infected with HIV/AIDS with a prevalence level of about 0.36 per cent,” he told reporters after launching the National AIDS Control Program 3, under which steps will be taken to halt and reverse the tide of HIV epidemic in India by 2011.
He said that “the prevalence appears to be less than the previous estimate of 0.9 per cent.” The minister said with the revised figure of 2.5 million, India now stands at number three in the world for its HIV/AIDS population. While South Africa reports the maximum number of people infected with HIV/AIDS globally, Nigeria comes second.
He said if the methodology used this year is implemented for the previous years, there is only a marginal reduction in the prevalence. “Moreover, in terms of human lives affected, the numbers are still large and worrying,” he added.
Last year, the government had said there are 5.2 million people infected with the dreaded disease in the country, while UNAIDS had maintained that there are 5.7 million living with HIV/AIDS.
He said the estimates this year were based on two important datas — the sentinel surveillance, which was expanded to 1,122 sites from last year’s 703 sites, and the National Family Health Survey -3, a population based survey.