Expert committee set up to check UNAIDS model for AIDS data

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

New Delhi, June 30 (UNI) Asserting that the UNAIDS data of India having largest number of 5.7 million HIV/AIDS patients in the world was based on ''unvalidated assumptions'', the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has set up an expert high level committee to examine the validity of these assumptions for Indian population.

''We abide by our data of 5.2 million, we can't give certification about the reliability of the other data,'' NACO Director General Sujatha Rao told newspersons here today.

She said that an expert committee headed by the Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research and having experts from various fields along with those from WHO and UNAIDS would examine the assumptions on which the UNAIDS data was arrived at. Asserting that NACO has nothing to hide, she said that even the experts from Geneva have been involved in the process.

Pointing out that during the past 20 years the data was arrived from the sentinel sites covering adult population of 15 to 49 years, she said this time UNAIDS has taken a different methodology and assumptions and changed the population base to entire population.

However, if the expert committee, which will give its report by December this year, validates the new model adopted by UNAIDS, the government would accept and use the same method, she said.

UNAIDS India Representative Denis Broun said that UNAIDS data was for the entire population i.e it included 0.13 million children upto 14 years and 0.36 million HIV positive population of above 50 years. These figures were arrived on the basis of mathematical model which covered the entire population and the assumptions used for them were arrived on the basis of figures validated worldwide.

However, he admitted that it was a ''fragile data'' and he was not sure if the data arrived at other countries would be the same for India. Stating that there was no controversy as far as UNAIDS is concerned, he said that it has just used additional mathematical model to cover the entire population so that an accurate estimate of the HIV epidemic could be made.

In 2005 NACO the data was based from 750 sentinel sites whose numbers would be increased to 1150 by the end of this year so that the entire country is saturated with these sentinel sites.

Behavioural studies are also being carried out under the National Family Health Survey 3 and 1.5 lakh blood samples being tested for HIV/AIDS to arrive at more accurate data, she said.

She said that the case of India and South Africa was not comparable as the latter with 5.5 million HIV/AIDS cases had a prevalence rate of about 20 percent while India has just below one percent pervalence rate. India having a population of over a billion should be compared with China but that country's data was based on just high risk group of sex workers and has not many sentinel sites, she said. China has just reported 650000 HIV infections connected to sex workers.

Moreover, global analysis of quality of HIV surveillance placed India in the category of fully implemented surveillance, she pointed out.

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