Assam: ‘Rise of HIV infections among injecting drug users’

GUWAHATI: Assam State AIDS Control Society (ASACS) since its inception has been working for prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS through different phases of National AIDS Control Programme (NACP). At present ASACS is implementing the NACP 5.

Assam is a HIV low prevalence state (0.11 %) when compared to the national prevalence which is 0.20 %. However, the number of HIV infection is on the rising trend in the state. As per NACO HIV Estimation Report 2022, Assam has an estimated number of 30,067 HIV positive cases in the state.

ASACS has taken various steps especially amongst the High Risk Groups (HRG) which includes Injecting Drug Users (IDU), Female Sex Workers (FSW), Man Having Sex with Man (MSM), Singe Male Migrant (SMM), Long Distance Truckers etc. Index Testing (contact or partner tracing of the clients who have tested positive) is being done amongst the high risk and the general population who are at risk. The Index Testing of high risk population is done by the 52 Targeted TI NGOs across the state.

An Integrated Health Campaign (IHC) has also started on July 4, 2023 in the HIV vulnerable Nagaon district and the duration of the campaign is 60 days. In this campaign, not only HIV but other tests like TB, Viral Hepatitis, Syphilis, STI etc are done. During this campaign till July 18, 2023, 1569 beneficiaries were tested and 233 have been detected HIV positive. For other diseases like Syphilis, 1262 beneficiaries have been screened and 54 are found reactive. For Hepatitis B, 926 beneficiaries were screened and 22 have been found reactive, for Hepatis C, 922 were screened and 165 have been found reactive. For Sexuality Transmitted Infections (STI) 1210 have been screened and 4 were found symptomatic and for TB, 1555 were screened and 337 are the TB suspected cases.

Although sexual transmission has always been a main route of HIV transmission in the state, it has been observed that sharing of infected needles and syringes by the injecting drug users has also become a major cause of HIV transmission in Assam during the recent years which is a matter of concern. As per the programmatic Mapping and Population Size Estimation 2022 Report of NACO, estimated 26156 injecting drug users are there in the state and HIV prevalence amongst the injecting drug users in Assam is 11.24 % which is higher than the national HIV prevalence which is 9.03 %.

During the last 3 years it has been observed that HIV detection amongst the Injecting Drug Users (IDU) in Assam is on the rise. In the year 2020-21, HIV detection among the injecting drug users is 76 (6%) out of 1288 total HIV detection, 628 (26%) in 2021-22 out of 2366 total HIV detection, 1756 (43%) in 2022-23 out of 4018 total HIV detection and 669 (50%) in 2023-24 (April to June, 23) out of 1317 HIV detection.

Among the districts, Kamrup (M) has the highest number of HIV cases (816 in 2022-23) followed by Nagaon (707 in 2022-23) and Cachar (407 in 2022-23).

For drug dependence treatment of injecting drug users, opioid drugs which are medically prescribed drugs are given to the injecting drug users so that they stay away from injecting drugs. The treatment is provided at Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) Centres and Satellite (link) OST Centres, stated a press release.

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