Statistics on modes of transmission of the newlyinfected or newly diagnosed

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum

NACO's latest figures (July 2003) point to as many as 4.58 million people living

with HIV/AIDS in India -- up from 3.97 million last year. Does anyone have any

information on the modes of transmission of the newly infected or newly

diagnosed?I am particularly interested in knowing about recent data from

antenatal centres.

Regards

Patralekha Chatterjee

E-mail: <patralekha_chatterjee@...>

[Guest guest]

Hello Patralekha,

It is always interesting when people show an interest in the guestimations that

NACO makes about the infected population in India but it troubles me that almost

all of the sentinel surveillance is done in antenatal centres.

All this does is distort the figures because most of these figures represent

pregnant women only who are mostly secondary statistics but the increased number

of women in the surveillance data fuels the rumours that women are the vectors

which is just not true.

When they start doing surveillance in the transport depots and the peacekeeping

batallions then we might start getting some real figures and some proper

surveillance. Until then we will continue to guess.

This is true of course of the privately diagnosed and treated positives who are

not required to report their status and continue to access treatment, care and

support while all the time not figuring in any of the so called surveillance

data.

One day we will perfect a way of actually knowing the numbers but by then Africa

will have activated its population and India will take its place as the worst

affected nation globally and then maybe someone might decide to take the problem

more seriously here in India.

If you get any information about modes of transmission it would be interesting

information to share. I was speaking with large numbers of Indians who have dual

HIV and TB infection and in most cases the TB came first, it is mostly all multi

drug resistant TB and the HIV almost had a free ride because the immune systems

were already so badly damaged. Some of the stories of how these fellows came to

be multi drug resistant are almost comical if they weren't so sad. Adherence

issues, lack of treatment understanding, poor accessibility, affordability

issues and so on were common themes.

Transmission ignorance is also high on the list of reasons why the epidemic

continues unabated and this is complicated by lack of ease and affordability of

the prevention technologies that the rest of the world takes for granted.

Take the law enforcement industry in many parts of India as another example. The

Penal Code that India allegedly finds so indispensable to its current social

order works like this. The enforcement officers detect the crime of prostitution

and fine the customer then have the sex of their choice with the service

provider, either male of female and mostly without protection. Protests are

usually met with summary justice which on occasion results in a fatality for

which their is seldom a docket written in the local Police Station. Getting back

to your email I hope they stop counting data from antenatal clinics because I

think these unfortunate mothers who test +ve have suffered enough.

Geoffrey

E-mail: <gheaviside@...>