India may miss out on the AIDS Target: ICMR Study

A study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has found out that due to the COVID 19 pandemic, India may not be able to achieve the target of eliminating AIDS by the end of 2030. This will be difficult since there is a slow decline in annual new HIV infections by only 27% from 2010 to 2017 against the national target of 75% by 2020.

Details of the Study

  • The national adult prevalence of HIV was 0.22% in 2017. Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland had the highest prevalence rate of more than 1% whereas the study has estimated that 2.1 million people were staying with HIV in 2017 with Maharashtra leading the tally.
  • Of the new cases amounting to 88000, Telangana had the largest share of new cases.
  • The top three states having the most number of cases were – Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
  • States with estimated people living with HIV numbers between 0.2 and 0.1 million were Telangana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
  • The target regarding the elimination of mother-to-child transmission could not be achieved as well in 2020. Out of the required 22677 cases, 58.2% were on treatment. States like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana had relatively higher cases of PMTCT but the national average was more than these states in terms of medical coverage.
  • 15 states in India accounted for 90% of the total HIV burden in India.
  • New cases were increasing in states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, etc. in 2017 as compared with that in 2010.

Month: 

Leave a Reply