Exactly how many HIV, AIDS deaths in India? 2 panels are working

Trying to put an end to the endless controversy over exactly how many Indians are living with HIV/AIDS, the government has set up committees to validate the grim data released...

Trying to put an end to the endless controversy over exactly how many Indians are living with HIV/AIDS, the government has set up committees to validate the grim data released by UNAIDS early this month. The agency had said that 4 lakh died of AIDS last year—the highest in the world. And that 57 lakh of “all age” were affected by HIV/AIDS.

The Government’s official figure is 52 lakh infected in the age group 15 to 49.

The committee, which will be headed by Director General ICMR N K Ganguly and co-chaired by Director General NACO Sujatha Rao, is working on a model to verify the UNAIDS figures for HIV.

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A sub-committee set up under Mari Bhat, Director, Indian Institute of Population Studies in Mumbai, will for the first time work on arriving at an AIDS mortality figure for the country.

“Both reports will be released by the end of this year,’’ said Arvind Pandey, Director, Institute of Medical Statistics, which will be coordinating both the studies.

UNAIDS country head Denis Brown said the assumptions on which the agency’s figures are based have been passed on to the government.

The committees will also work to develop a new methodology for the AIDS count for 2007. Helping the committees will be National Institute of Epidemiology in Chennai, IIPS in Mumbai, PGI Chandigarh and RMRC in Orissa.

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‘‘The final model will be ready by February 2007,’’ said Pandey.

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