New AIDS map shows hot zones spread over 20 states, 163 dists

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New AIDS map shows hot zones spread over 20 states, 163 dists

Toufiq Rashid, Posted online: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 0000 hrs

DISTRICTWISE BREAKUP: Delhi, Bihar, Haryana, UP among new entrants

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 27: Contrary to conventional wisdom that high

prevalence of HIV/AIDS is restricted to southern states and some

places in the North-East, a new classification done by the National

AIDS Control Programme (NACO) shows that the disease is spread across

as many as 20 states in 163 districts.

These 163 districts have been categorised as " A districts " in the

third phase of the NACO Programme beginning April 1, 2007: districts

where more than 1% of the general population and more than 5% of the

high-risk group is infected with the virus. Experts say this means

these districts have crossed the " epidemic threshold " for the

disease.

While the highest number of these A districts are, predictably, in

states like Andhra Pradesh (21 of 25 districts fall in this

category), Karnataka (24 of 27), Maharashtra (30 of 36), the surprise

entrants are: New Delhi; eight districts in Bihar (including Purnia,

West & East Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi and Kishanganj); five

in Uttar Pradesh (Etah, Etawah, Latehar, Banda and Balrampur); five

in Madhya Pradesh, including Jabalpur and Bhopal; Chandigarh,

Ludhiana and Amritsar in Punjab, Jhalawar and Ganganagar in Rajasthan

and Jhajjar in Haryana.

Sikkim, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and

Kashmir, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Assam

are the only states which don't have " A districts. "

" The classification of the 611 districts is made on the basis of

epidemiology risk and vulnerability and is based on annual sentinel

surveillance. We will follow this classification for making

districtwise prevention and control programmes,'' said Sujatha Rao,

NACO's Director General.

According to the new classification, instead of having one AIDS

control programme for all states, NACO has estimated districtwise

prevalence to finetune strategies. So while A districts are the hot

zone, 59 fall in the B category: those with less than 1% prevalence

in general population and 5% in high-risk groups.

Category C, with 278 districts, has less than 1% prevalence in

general population and less than 5% in the high-risk group.

D category districts are " the safe districts " where prevalence in the

general population is 0.25% — 111 fall in this category.

" Now that we know the vulnerability and actual problem in the

district, each of the 611 districts in the country will have a link

worker for HIV who will be responsible for implementing the programme

at the district level,'' said Rao.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/17446.html