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Number of people affected by HIV/AIDS in India
Globally India is second only to South Africa in
terms of the overall number of people living with the disease.
• NACO estimated that there the number of Indians
living with HIV increased by 500,000 in 2003 to 5.1 million. Around
38 percent of these people were women.
• In November 2004, NACO published the number of
AIDS cases reported. The total of AIDS cases in India were 87,596 of
whom 24,504 were women. This data also indicated that 37% of
reported AIDS cases were diagnosed among people under 30.
• The UN Population Division projects that India's
adult HIV prevalence will peak at 1.9% in 2019. The UN estimates
that there were 2.7 million AIDS deaths in India between 1980 and
2000. During 2000-15, the UN projects 12.3 million AIDS deaths and
49.5 million deaths during 2015-50.
• A 2002 report by the CIA's National Intelligence
Council predicted 20 million to 25 million AIDS cases in India by
2010, more than any other country in the world.
The number of HIV infections in India is difficult
to determine and the subject of ongoing controversy. India's
prevalence estimates are based solely on sentinel surveillance
conducted at public sites. The country has no national information
system to collect HIV testing information from the private sector,
which provides 80% of health care in the country.
Although the HIV prevalence rate is low (0.9%), the
overall number of people with HIV infection is high according to
estimates by UNAIDS. The official Indian figures do not reveal such
a scale of infection, but weaknesses in the surveillance system,
bias in targeting groups for testing, and the lack of availability
of testing services in several parts of the country suggest a
significant element of underreporting. Given India's large
population, with most of the Indian states having a population
greater than a majority of the countries in Africa, a mere 0.1
percent increase in the prevalence rate would increase the number of
adults living with HIV/AIDS by over half a million people.
Obtaining data on the number of children orphaned by
AIDS is difficult but it is believed that the proportion of children
in India orphaned by AIDS is far lower than in sub-Saharan Africa
but because of India's huge population the actual number of children
already orphaned by AIDS is already high. In 2001 the number of
orphaned children was already estimated at 1.2 million.
Although children are not yet being orphaned by
HIV/AIDS on a large scale in most cities, studies have shown that
the problem of orphans in some urban slum areas of India is already
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