For clear picture, India to record AIDS deaths

India is likely to become one of the first countries in the world next year to compute the number of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS.This will hel...

India is likely to become one of the first countries in the world next year to compute the number of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS.

This will help the country get a clear picture of the extent of the HIV/AIDS problem after the controversy caused by the Health Ministry’s announcement that HIV/AIDS cases were coming down. The Ministry had said India had only 28,000 new infections last year, taking the number of HIV/AIDS cases in 2004 to 5.13 million, up from 5.1 million in 2003.

However, the World Bank said India had at least 8 million people suffering from the disease; UNAIDS and other agencies said figures were being misinterpreted and agreed that the number of deaths need to be included.

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Thus, NACO is likely next year to provide figures for deaths caused by HIV/AIDS. A group of national and international experts are meeting here tomorrow to set up a system to evaluate such deaths. Representatives from NACO, ICMR, UNAIDS, WHO and various research centers like the Indian Institute Of Epidemiology, Chennai are likely to attend.

Prasada Rao, the Regional Director, South Asian Support team, UNAIDS Bangkok, says: “The aim is to get a clear epidemiological picture and put an end to controversies.’’

Denis Broun, country coordinator, UNAIDS India, says NACO might be able to release the death figures in the next 6-12 months.

Dr S Y Qureshi, Project Director NACO, says the process will be part of the next phase of the Aids Control Programme. “India is among the few countries which have a system for national surveillance,” he said.

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The Centre has an annual exercise of data collection for three months from July to September. NACO officials said data was collected from nearly 700 sentinel surveillance sites last year.