UNAIDS defends report saying India has highest no of HIV

New Delhi, May 31 (UNI) UNAIDS today defended its report about India having the highest incidence of HIV in the world with 5.7 million suffering from the infection by clarifying that it has been arrived at the figure by including children under 15 years and adults over 50 years who are traditionally excluded from reporting on HIV/AIDS.

According to the 2006 Report on the Global AIDS epidemic lauched in New York yesterday on the eve of the UN General Assembly Session on AIDS, India with 5.7 million Indians living with HIV has highest HIV incidence in the world. It had said that India has overtaken South Africa as the latter had 5.5 million HIV positive persons by the end of 2005.

''In order to assure universal access, the estimates of the UNGASS have for the first time included children under 15 years and adult of over 50 years to the 15 to 49 age group traditionally used for reporting. The new methodology accounts for the additional 0.5 million (to the national estimates of 5.2 million Indian adults) taking the current number of Indians living with HIV to 5.7 million,'' UNAIDS said in a release here.

The UNAIDS clarification came in the wake of the Indian government denying the figure of 5.7 million HIV positive patients.

Expressing ''surprise'' at how the UNAIDS reached the figure of 5.7 million HIV positive patients, health minister Anmbumoni Ramadoss said that the National AIDS Control Organisation's figure of 5.208 million HIV positive patients had been reached on the basis of scientifically derived data from various sentinel surveillance sites. He had pointed out that even UNAIDS and WHO were also associated with the data and had approved it earlier.

UNAIDS even adopted a placatory gesture by saying that ''the good news is that India's strategic AIDS response has shown encouraging results and there is evidence of the epidemic levelling off in the Southern states as in some other regions and countries of the world.'' ''However, there is no room for complacency. The HIV rates are high and are still increasing at most-at-risk population and addition of new districts and states expanding the AIDS geography. Hence, even a minor increase in HIV transmission could translate into huge numbers of people being infected with HIV in India,'' cautioned UNAIDS India Country Coordinator Denis Broun who is in New York.

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