One person infected to HIV every day in Mizoram

Aizawl, Nov 22 (UNI) On an average, at least one person was tested HIV positive everyday in Mizoram during the past one year.

According to the Deputy Director Dr Rohmingthanga of Mizoram State AIDS Control Society (MSACS), out of 8385 blood samples tested during October 2005 to October 2006, 446 have been found to be HIV positive, which indicates that a person infected HIV positive every day.

"Earlier the people usually were afraid to get their blood tested and now the attitude has improved that increasing number of blood tests might also be the reason for the increase of HIV positive rate," Dr Rohmingthanga added.

The increasing trend is among the high-risk groups, who are Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) and commercial sex workers, he said adding of the 446 HIV positives detected in past one year, 226 were found to be transmitted through sex.

HIV infection among IDUs rose from 1.60 per cent in 2002 to 4 per cent in 2003, which further jumped to 5.33 per cent in 2004.

MSACS officials also did not rule out against the possibility of HIV proliferation among people who don't belong to high-risk groups but who occasionally have interaction with people of high risk groups.

As per the MSACS latest statistics on the whole, as many as 30,272 blood samples have been tested during the period of October 1990 to October 2006, which 1770 were found to be HIV positive, he said.

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