Three northeastern States emerge as new HIV hotspots

Three northeastern States emerge as new HIV hotspots

News:

1. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the number of HIV cases has been declining in India.

Important facts:

2. However, in few northeastern states such as Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura have emerged as the new hotspots for HIV.
3. The Ministry’s data revealed the following facts:

• In four sites in Mizoram and one in Tripura, HIV prevalence was higher among IDUs, which for the rest of the country is 6.3%
• In places named  Aizwal, Champhai and Kolasib, the prevalence of HIV in IDUs was 37.44%, 33.06% and 38.14% respectively.
• In Mizoram’s Aizwal district, the prevalence of HIV was as high as 24.68%, compared with 1.6% for other sites in the country.
• HIV prevalence among female sex workers was higher at four sites- two in Tripura and one each in Mizoram and Meghlaya.
• In case of pregnant women visiting ante-natal clinics(ANC), six centres in Mizoram, two in Meghalaya and one in Tripura recorded HIV prevalence of more than 1%, compared with HIV prevalence of 0.28% among pregnant women visiting ANCs in other places in India surveyed last year.
• The HIV Sentinel Surveillance (HSS), a biennial study conducted by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), is one of the largest regular studies in the world dealing with HIV in high risk groups of the population.
• The HSS had referred that HIV prevalence in the context of ANCs in the northeastern States of Mizoram (1.19%), Nagaland (0.82%), Meghalaya (0.73%), Tripura (0.56%) and Manipur (0.47%) were among the highest.

4. The Ministry attributed the reason for the rise in the incidence of HIV to the high-risk behaviour of Injecting Drug Users (IDUs), and unsafe sexual practices.
5. Following suggestions were given by the Ministry to address the spread of HIV:

• Preventive and intervention strategies for the most-at-risk population.
• To bring more people living with HIV infection in India under Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART).
• The challenge lies in encouraging more people to take the test and then provide them with ART.
• ART helps in effectively suppressing the virus and reducing the transmission of HIV from the infected person.
• In terms of PLHIV who are on ART, Maharashtra has the highest number (with 2.03 lakh persons) followed by A.P.(1.78 lakh ) and Karnataka (1.58 lakh persons).