India says will check UN estimate on HIV caseload

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India planned to verify United
Nations estimates it had overtaken South Africa as the country
with the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the
world, a government official said on Friday.

UNAIDS, the U.N.’s AIDS prevention agency, said last month
there were about 5.7 million Indians infected at the end of
2005 against South Africa’s 5.5 million cases.

The Indian government has disputed the figure, saying there
were 5.2 million cases by the end of last year — stirring a
debate in local media as to whether authorities have been
suppressing the reality of the disease in the country.

Sujatha Rao, director general of the National AIDS Control
Organization told a news conference the discrepancy between the
two estimates was due to different methodologies.

“UNAIDS has taken a different methodology, but it has to be
validated because the assumptions that UNAIDS took were based
on global data and not Indian data so therefore they have come
up with a higher estimate,” Rao said.

She said the U.N. had also taken into account all age
groups, whereas Indian estimates were based on those between
the ages of 15 and 49 years old.

Rao said the government had now set up an independent
expert committee to try to apply and validate UNAIDS’
methodology and the results would be known at the end of 2006.
She said this would show the reality of the HIV/AIDS situation
in India.

Rao said it was not fair to say India had the world’s
largest HIV-infected population as countries such as China,
which says it has 650,000 infections, did not have
comprehensive surveillance systems in place compared with
India.

“So when UNAIDS comes up and makes a statement that India
has the highest number of infections, they are not comparing
apples with apples — they are comparing apples with oranges,”
she said.

India plans to spend about 7 billion rupees ($152 million)
in fiscal 2006/2007 on stemming rising infections — most of
which will be spent on anti-retroviral treatment, counseling,
distribution of condoms and awareness campaigns.

The U.N. estimates about 400,000 deaths related to HIV/AIDS
occurred in India last year — a figure Rao said was possible,
although studies by the government were still underway.

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