AIDS spells faster death in indian than in US

December 28, 2001

AIDS spells faster death in India than in US, says study

The Indian Express 27th December, 2001-New Delhi

INDIANS progress faster to wards AIDS from their HIV seropositive

status compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world, a study

conducted in Mumbai has revealed. While it takes an average 13 years

for patients in homosexual relationships in the US to get full-blown

AIDS—the disease is said to progress faster in this section—

heterosexual Indians reach this stage in less than eight years. The

progression of the Indian patient, who does not use anti-retroviral

therapy, from disease to death is also almost twice as fast, at 18

months, which is normally 33 months in the US. The results of the

study—first of its kind in Asia --- conducted over seven years, serve

as a pointer to care-givers to anticipate changes in HIV patients'

lives and to policymakers and demographers to forecast the impact of

the epidemic in the country. The reasons why the progression is much

faster in Indians are many and varied, ranging from poor nutrition to

high prevalence of tropical diseases here. " Also, there are different

strains and subtypes of the HIV virus in the country, which could be

one of the reasons, " says Dr. Subhash Hira of the AIDS Research and

Control Centre (ARCON), a joint venture of the government of

Maharashtra and University of Texas, Houston. The study on 1,009

patients in J.J. Hospital, Mumbai, during the period from 1994 to

2001 was co-conducted by the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata,

Department of Infectious Diseases, MGM Medical College, Navi Mumbai,

and the departments of Skin & VD and Pathology, J.J. Hospital. The

results of the study were presented at the International Conference

on HIV/AIDS held here last week. According to the study, HIV patients

not on anti-retroviral therapy here suffered from a high incidence of

chronic fever, diarrhea, oral candidiasis, weight loss, incident

tuberculosis and herpes zoster, which are the main clinical markers

of the progress of the disease, with TB being the disease largely

associated with the patient's death.

" In fact, the occurrence of TB in an HIV positive patient is 5.7 per

cent, which means an approximate six in 100 persons in the country

develop TB due to HIV, " explains Dr. Hira, pointing out that at this

rate around 2.5 lakh tuberculosis patients are added annually to the

existing 2 million cases in the country.

**********************************************************************

Jagdish Harsh ( jharsh@... )

François-Xavier Bagnoud (INDIA) ( http://www.fxb.org/ )

Recommended Posts