Gates vist: Sinha rejects US report on AIDS

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Sinha rejects US report on AIDS

Pioneer News Service/New Delhi

India has rejected an US intelligence agency report which projects

that the country will have over 25 million people suffering with

AIDS by 2010 even as an NGO charged that the report was aimed at

exploiting Indian market for AIDS drugs and vaccines.

" We have in India around 4 million people living with HIV. This is

true. It is, however, completely inaccurate to claim that India will

have over 25 million people living with HIV/AIDS by 2010. We are

surprised by the figures being freely cited, " Union Health Minister

Shatrughan Sinha said on Saturday.

Mr Sinha said that the prevalence of HIV nationally continued to be

categorised as low. " There may be pockets of high infections - six

states of India have a generalised epidemic. In these states, there

are also a few districts where there is only about 2 per cent

prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the general population, " he said.

Admitting that the rest of the country with low prevalence of

HIV/AIDS has high vulnerability on account of low levels of

awareness, Mr Sinha said the National Aids Control Organisation was

carefully targeting these aspects.

Mr Sinha and the NGO, Jackindia, sought the details on which these

estimates were based. Drawing links between the CIA report and Bill

Gates' visit to India, the NGO claimed the CIA report has been

funded by Gates and the purpose was commercial exploitation of

Indian people by creating markets for aids drugs and vaccines.

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