As people around the globe plan various events to mark World AIDS Day on Tuesday,Chandigarhs figures on AIDS and the resulting deaths clearly throw up serious challenges ahead. Even as the Health department suggests that the numbers,especially AIDS-related deaths,are on a decline over the last two years,the graph over the last decade shows an upwards trend. This suggests that as the years go by,HIV cases step into full-blown AIDS cases resulting in more fatalities. With nascent treatment and detection modalities in 1999,city hospitals reported merely eight deaths in three hospitals (PGI,GMCH and GMSH-16) due to AIDS. A decade on,the numbers have increased over ten times,with hospitals now reporting more deaths over the last three years. While the toll this year has already touched 93 (till October),last years count was 97,while 2007 saw as many as 117 persons falling prey to AIDS,making it the highest number of fatalities reported in a year. Between 2000 and 2005,the average deaths per year remained confined in the range of 20 to 30,as per the official figures of the State Aids Control Society,UT. According to doctors,in some cases it takes 15 to 17 years before the HIV infection takes the shape of full-blown AIDS and that is when the chances of fatalities increase. Better detection,more reporting of cases in hospitals,more outstation patients in the city and HIV cases turning into full-blown AIDS cases are all resulting in reporting of more causalities. But government officials insist that the trend is on a decline in the last two years. If we compare the figures in the last two years,the numbers have gone down. In 2007,114 persons succumbed to the deadly disease,while the toll came down to 97 in 2008. The Administrations programme on the intervention in target groups has been effective, remarked a senior official of SACS. According to information,cases from Punjab comprise 52 percent of the total AIDS cases in hospitals here,followed by Haryana which has a share of nearly 23 percent of those who come for treatment here. Chandigarh has not more than six percent of the total cases.
