Safe sexual practices minimizes HIV infection rate in High Prevalent States in Southern India

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Safe sexual practices minimizes HIV infection rate in High Prevalent States in

Southern India

Contrary to predictions that India’s AIDS epidemic will explode, the number of

new HIV infections has actually declined in some of the worst affected parts of

the country, claims health researchers.

A new study by Indian and Canadian researchers has shown that the HIV infection

rate among young women in the Southern States between the age of 15 and 24 has

dropped from 1.7% to 1.1% over 4 years from 2000. “This one-third drop is the

first positive sign about the direction in which the HIV epidemic is moving in

southern India,” said Prabhat Jha, Professor of University of Toronto dept. of

Public Health.

The scientist cautioned that while HIV remains a big problem in India, their

study has indicated that increasing the use of condom and greater awareness can

contribute to a significant decline in new infections.

The National AIDS Control Organization last year estimated that India had

5,20,000 HIV infected people, but foreign experts have often predicted worsening

scenarios. In 2002, a US intelligence think tank had projected that India might

have 20 million HIV infected people by 2010. 2 years ago, the Head of Global

Organization had warned that, “ India is on an African Trajectory…the future

might be like South Africa.”

Dr Jha & his associates reported from a study in the journal Lancet, a decline

in infections among young women in Maharastra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and

Karnataka. They tracked HIV infections among 2,90,000 women and 58,000 men in

both North and South India between 2000 and 2004. As per the group of scientists

“ Infection in young women is a good indicator of new infection.” Most young

women report only sexual contact with husbands or male partners who themselves

might have picked it up from sex workers.

According to Rajesh Kumar, Professor of Community Medicine at the Post Graduate

Institute in Chandigarh. “The epidemic is fuelled by new infections. A drop in

new infections tells us that the force of the epidemic is weakening in Southern

India,” The researchers attribute the change to grater use of condom or less

contact with sex workers.

“We think it’s mainly due to condom use because data from Tamilnadu suggest no

change in the number of clients for sex workers,” said Dr Jha.

In the Northern States, their analysis revealed no change in infections. It has

stayed constant at 0.3%. The researchers caution that the relatively low

prevalence may probably indicate of “ Poorer surveillance and gaps in data

collection”.

Source : The Telegraph