Punjab: In just over 3 years, HIV positive cases jump 2-and-a-half times; Health Minister Balbir Singh says ‘not alarming’

The data put out by Punjab State Aids Control Society on its website has only figures upto 2019-20. As per this data, recorded from 2009-10 onwards, the highest number new patients tested positive for HIV was 8,133 in 2018-19.

Between 2009 and 2020 the total cases of HIV detected each year were 5351 (2009-10), 5433 (2010-11), 5387 (2011-12), 4863 (2012-13), 4537 (2013-14), 5385 (2014-15), 5543 (2015-16), 5987 (2016-17), 6730 (2017-18), 8133 (2018-19) and 4131 (2019-20).

Additional Project Director, Punjab State Aids Control Society, Dr Bobby Gulati, did not take receive repeated phone calls or respond to text messages regarding the HIV statistics shared by the Health Minister.

However, Balbir Singh, speaking with The Indian Express, on the data that he put out on the HIV patients and said that there was not an alarming spike per se in the number of patients.

“The testing which we conduct during blood donation, transfusion and certain camps give us the figures of HIV patients. A very large number of patients are housed in prison where they share needles for intravenous drugs and thus end up spreading the disease. The spike in 2022-23 could also have been because of the Covid-19 induced lockdown when drugs were not easily available and sharing practice may have increased,” said Balbir Singh.

The Health Minister said that he is proposing a number of steps in order to address this problem. “Many drug users are lodged in prison and they have to be tackled at the grassroots level in order to check the use of drugs and the subsequent spread of diseases like Hepatitis and HIV through needle sharing. I have chalked out plans for making available alternate de-addiction drugs, which need not be taken intravenously,” said Balbir Singh.

He said that the drug de-addiction centres in the state will soon have a new holistic approach in order to tackle the problem. “We will be launching this effort very soon. I have all the plans ready with me and it will be implemented all across the state”.

As per the minister, the Punjab government has initiated outreach campaigns through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to make people aware about HIV.

A one-month awareness campaign named ‘Jan Jagrukta Muhim’ was conducted from February 27 to March 28 in which 11 information vans covered 1,650 villages holding free HIV testing camps and 330 folk performances. The objective was to create awareness about the mode of transmission of HIV and preventive measures, the minister said.

Under Adolescent Education Programme, HIV/AIDS awareness activities such as poster making, slogan writing, quiz competitions, seminars for the students of classes 9 to 12 standard of 6,057 schools are being carried out. This programme is being run in collaboration with SCERT, Punjab.