Indians are geneticaly more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS: AIIMS

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'Indians vulnerable to HIV/Aids'

India is home to one in seven HIV-positive people Indians infected

With the Aids virus are more likely to contract the disease than

people in the west, a new study has found. Scientists say that

Indians have lower immunity to the virus because they have genes

that hasten the disease.

India says more than five million of its citizens are infected with

the HIV virus, second only to South Africa.

Activists say the number of Indians affected by HIV/Aids is much

higher than the government says.

Scientists at India's premier medical school, the All India

Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), studied 200 people with HIV

infection and 2000 healthy people over two years for the study.

Protective genes are low among Indians while the harmful genes are

more common

They found that the HLA-B*35-Px gene linked to rapid progression

from HIV infection to Aids is " two-and-a-half times " more common in

Indians than a protective gene called HLA-B*35-Py.

They also found that that a " protective variant " of chemokines -

intracellular messenger molecules whose major function is to attract

immune cells to sites of infection - was not present among Indians.

Rising infection

" Protective genes are low among Indians while the harmful genes are

more common, " Dr NK Mehra, head of the study told the BBC.

A leading Indian HIV/Aids expert Dr Smarajit Jana says that this

could be a major finding.

" If true, it could open up more research on genetic factors and

regarding the path from HIV infection to Aids, " he said.

Last July, India's National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) said

that the country had 5.1 million infections, second only to South

Africa which has 5.3 million people living with HIV or Aids.

Two years ago, the United States National Intelligence Council

estimated there were five million to eight million HIV-infected

people in India, a number it said could swell to 20-25 million by

2010.

The Indian government says there is no need to panic as only 0.5% of

Indians have been infected, compared to 2.1% in Thailand and 2.3% in

South Africa.

Half of India's new HIV infections occur in the 10-25 age group but

only 59% of adolescents in the country are familiar with condoms,

according to a government report.

The report says the level of HIV infection among women is likely to

go up, with increasing numbers of married women being infected by

their husbands.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4413151.stm