28 November 2010
By Teena Thacker
New Delhi, India
While the number of people infected with HIV/AIDS in India has gone down tremendously – 23.9 lakh people are infected with the virus now – Andhra Pradesh continues to report the maximum number of cases, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka.
According to recent estimates by the National AIDS Control organisation (NACO), the number of new cases in India annually has shown a 50 per cent fall when compared with figures eight years ago. In 2009, 1.2 lakh people were infected, which is half of the 2.4 lakh who got the virus in 2001.
Andhra Pradesh continues to be a problem state, reporting the maximum number of cases (5,19,827), with an estimated HIV prevalence in males at 1.07 per cent, more than the overall prevalence of 0.31 per cent.
Manipur has reported the maximum of all states–prevalence of 1.89 among the male population. The overall adult HIV prevalence among men is 0.36 per cent, while among women it is 0.25 per cent.
The report notes that in India, 90 per cent of newly infected people with HIV AIDS in India are believed to have acquired the disease due to unprotected sex. But the main mode of contamination in the North Eastern states is administering drugs with the same injection by two or more people.
According to the estimates, while 14,69,245 men acquired the infection in 2009, about 9,26,197 women are reported to be infected with the virus.
The Health Ministry is likely to reveal the findings of the report on December
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