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Minister
plays down Aids crisis
EHM
News Bureau - New Delhi
The
Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Shatrughan
Sinha, has clarified the figures of HIV patients being
quoted in press. that that there are around 4 million
people living with HIV but it is completely inaccurate
to claim that India will have over 25 million people living
with HIV/Aids by 2010, he says. “We have come across
press reports quoting alarming figures regarding prevalence
and spread of HIV/Aids in India. Having taken a number
of initiatives and put in place many targeted interventions
to generate awareness and to educate the public, we do
not wish to contribute to unnecessary panic and alarm.”
The
ministry is updating the data-set and information on the
epidemiology and demography of HIV/Aids every year and
is therefore surprised by the figures being freely cited,
he says.
“Nationally,
the prevalence of HIV continues to be categorised as low.
There may be pockets of high infection - six states of
India have a generalised epidemic. In these states, there
are also a few districts where there is only about two
per cent prevalence of HIV/Aids in the general population.
We are particularly mindful of the fact that the rest
of the country with low prevalence of HIV/Aids has high
vulnerability on account of (a) lower levels of awareness
(b) high migration to high-risk states for economic betterment
(c) high levels of multi-partner sex/needle exchange (d)
high incidence of untreated STDs.” |
