Though new HIV infections have declined by 66 per cent and AIDS-related deaths by 54 per cent between 2007 and 2015, there is no reason for the Government to be complacent as increasing trends have been detected in a number of places like Chandigarh, Delhi, Tripura, Punjab, Jharkhand, Haryana and Sikkim.
The HIV Estimation-2015, released by Union Health Minister JP Nadda, at an event on Tuesday to mark the World AIDS Day has been developed by the National Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS)-ICMR with support from experts from AIIMS, WHO and Central Disease Control among others.
The report notes that HIV prevalence among adults aged 15-49 years is estimated to have fallen from 0.34 per cent to 0.26 per cent in 2007-2015. Currently adult prevalence is 0.30 per cent among males, and 0.22 per cent among females.
Adult prevalence varies significantly across the country with Manipur still having the highest estimated HIV adult prevalence at 1.15 per cent, followed by Mizoram (0.80 per cent), Nagaland (0.78 per cent), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (0.66 per cent), Karnataka (0.45 per cent), Gujarat (0.42 per cent), Goa (0.40 per cent) and Maharashtra (0.37 per cent).
Other States that have an adult prevalence of over 0.20 per cent include Bihar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Odisha, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal. While declines in adult HIV prevalence persist in all the high prevalence States of South and North-east India, the trend has stabilised in many States like Bihar, Gujarat, Mizoram and Uttar Pradesh.
However, increasing trends have been detected in a number of States/union territories including Chandigarh, Delhi, Tripura, Punjab, Jharkhand, Haryana and Sikkim, as per the report.
The report projects 0.86 lakh annual new HIV infections in 2015, a decrease from 2.51 lakh in 2000 and 1.28 lakh in 2007. However, the rate of decrease is slowing down in recent years.
States with high numbers of new infections include Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
The number of persons living with HIV in need of ART and the number of pregnant women in need of antiretroviral prophylaxis to prevent parents to child transmission (PPTCT) of HIV in 2015 is estimated at 13.45 lakh and 35 thousands respectively.