HIV In India: Mizoram Tops States in HIV Prevalence with 2% of Adult Population Affected

A Mizoram State AIDS Control Society (MSACS) official said that Mizoram had the highest adult HIV prevalence among states in 2017 with the infection being detected in 2.04 per cent of the people whose blood samples were tested.

According to him, 18,081 people in the state, which has a total population of around 11 lakh were found HIV positive between October 1990 and August this year.

Mizoram was one of the five states where the number of new infection cases has increased, though such cases are declining nationally, the HIV Estimations 2017 report released by National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) stated.

Although number of AIDS infection cases has decreased nationally but Mizoram is among those five states where the number of new infection cases has increased.

The official said, "According to the India HIV Estimations 2017 Technical Report, Mizoram ranked first in the country at 2.04 per cent HIV positives detected from the number of

people whose blood samples were tested."

The report stated that Mizoram is followed by Manipur at 1.43 per cent and Nagaland 1.15 per cent.

The MSACS official informed that unsafe sex was the principal reason behind the spread of infection, preceded by by sharing of needles and syringes by drug users and sexual intercourse between homosexual partners.

The official moreover notified that over 42 per cent of the HIV positive people are in the age group of 25-34 years and 26 per cent falls in the 35-49 years age category.

As per the Estimations report, HIV incidence per 1,000 uninfected population in 2017 was also highest in Mizoram (1.32) followed by Nagaland (0.59) and Manipur (0.58).

Remarkably India is among all 190 countries, which have pledged to end AIDS by 2030 by adopting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

According to the National AIDS Control Organisation it was estimated that 2.11 million people in India live with HIV/AIDS in 2015.

Again the 2017 UNAIDS data showed that new HIV infections in India have decreased by 46%, and AIDS-related deaths have decreased by 22% since 2010.

In the year 2016, India had 80,000 new HIV infections against 1,50,000 in 2005, and 62,000 AIDS-related deaths against 1,50,000 in 2005.

India has HIV prevalence of 0.26% in the adult population, approximately 2.1 million people living with HIV, shows data.