The Hindu : Good news, bad news

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 27, 2003

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National

Good news, bad news

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JULY 26. There is some good and not so good news on the HIV/AIDS front.

The good news: The epidemic seems to have reached a plateau in Tamil Nadu. Across the country there has been a decline in the number of cases that are due to transmission through blood and blood products.

The bad news: Last year the number of HIV cases went up sharply along with a significant increase in the proportion of cases due to transmission through sexual and mother-to-child routes.

The new trends in the HIV scenario are revealed in the annual survey conducted by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) under the Union Health Ministry. According to the survey, the number of HIV cases at the end of December last year for the country was in the range of 3.82 million to 4.58 million — a big jump from the December 2001 figure of 3.31 million to 3.97 million.

The difference between the figure in December 2001 and the year before (3.25 million to 3.86 million) was not significant.

As regards break up of the causes for HIV cases, the survey has found that the proportion of cases due to sexual transmission has gone up from 80.3 per cent in 1999 to 84.3 per cent, and that due to transmission from mother to child has gone up from 0.33 per cent in 1999 to 2.61 per cent. The ratio of cases due to transmission through blood and blood products, on the other hand, has come down from 6.07 per cent in 1999 to 2.99 per cent.

As regards the problem of transmission among injecting drug users, which is the fourth major cause of disease, the trend is a mixed bag of good and bad news.

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