India AIDS cases lower than thought

The number of people living with HIV-AIDS in India stands at two million to 3.1 million, sharply lower than earlier estimates, the health minister announced on Friday.

Previous estimates from India's National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) had put the HIV caseload at 5.2 million while UNAIDS in 2006 estimated 5.7 million cases.

"Today we have a far more reliable estimate of the burden of HIV in India," said Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.

"The results show that there are an estimated two million to 3.1 million people affected with HIV-AIDS," Ramadoss told a news conference in the Indian capital.

International health organisations have for years worried about the possibility of a South Africa-style AIDS epidemic in India but the new figures being mentioned would suggest a fairly low infection rate.

Officials have said the much lower estimate could be attributed to the fact that the data available this year is better than before.

"There are more sentinel sites than before so we have a better picture of the epidemic," said Dennis Broun, country director for UNAIDS India, said before the latest figures were announced.

Broun was referring to testing sites where samples are taken from members of both low- and high-risk groups, to be used as markers.

More than 1,100 testing sites were used this year as compared to 700 in the past, NACO epidemiologist Ajay Kumar Khera said.

The north was under-represented before, Khera added, skewing nationwide estimates towards southern states with higher rates of infection.

However organisations that work with high-risk groups such as commercial sex workers, intravenous drug users and homosexual men have said their work will go on as before even with a lower estimated caseload.