HIV is 'out of control' in India, official statistics 'wrong'. Feachem

[Guest guest]

HIV is 'out of control' in India

A senior Aids expert has warned that HIV in India is " out of

control " .

The executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids said that

the epidemic in India is spreading rapidly and nothing is being done

to stop it.

Feachem warned that India has overtaken South Africa as the

country with the most HIV positive patients.

He warned that the epidemic has spread so quickly that India needed

to " wake up " and take the problem seriously, otherwise millions of

people will die.

Official statistics 'wrong'

" The epidemic (in India) is growing very rapidly. It is out of

control. There is nothing happening in India today that is big or

serious enough to prevent it, " Mr Feachem said.

He warned that India has now overtaken South Africa as the country

with the highest number of people living with Aids or the human

immunodeficiency virus, HIV.

" Official statistics show India in second place and South Africa in

first place, " he said, " but the official statistics are wrong. India

is in first place, " he told the AFP news agency.

Latest figures provided by the UN agency UNAids - released in July

2004 - show that South Africa had the highest total of people with

HIV or Aids in the world, with an estimated 5.3 million infected

adults and children in a range of 4.5 to 6.2 million.

India's total was put at 5.1 million, but the range estimate was far

wider - from 2.5 to 8.5 million - because of the lack of reliable

data there in relation to the HIV pandemic.

India has to wake up and India has to take this very, very seriously

Fiche, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids

Mr Feachem warned that the illness would spread faster among India's

Hindu population than among Muslims, because Muslims tend to be

circumcised, which he said was " an acknowledged protective factor "

against the Aids virus.

Widespread ignorance

The Global Health Fund was set up in 2001 by the G8 group of

industrialised countries to provide funding for countries worst

affected by HIV/Aids, Malaria and TB.

It provides funding for HIV prevention projects, but there are

instances where the Fund will grant funding for treatment as well.

Mr Feachem said that the biggest form of transmission in India is

from heterosexual intercourse with prostitutes.

He said the problems were compounded by widespread ignorance about

HIV, an illness which he said had become stigmatised.

He also criticised the high prices in India of anti-HIV drugs.

" It is easier to get Indian generic drugs in Africa than it is to

get them in India. That is a scandal and has to be changed. "

The Global Fund has committed more than three billion dollars to 300

programmes in 127 countries for combating HIV/Aids, TB and malaria.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/4461999.stm