BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has witnessed a significant reduction in AIDS burden with new HIV positive cases dropping by 30 per cent in 2017 from 2010, the latest National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) report has revealed.
The ‘India HIV Estimations Report 2017’ released on Friday indicated that the State performed much better than the National decline by 27 per cent during the same period. The adult (15 to 49 years) HIV prevalence has come down from 0.30 cases per 1000 uninfected population in 2010 to 0.13 in 2017.
The prevalence is less than in 22 States and UTs including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Goa and Delhi.
While India has around 21.4 lakh positive cases with HIV prevalence of 0.22, Odisha has an estimated 41,357 people including 17,843 women living with HIV. The State recorded around 1,389 deaths and 2,422 new infections last year against 3,887 AIDS deaths and 3,844 new infections in 2010. Women contributed about 44 per cent of new infections and 40 per cent AIDS-related deaths in 2017, the report stated.
Since prevention of new HIV infections continued to be the mainstay of national AIDS response, it has resulted in significant reduction in HIV incidence with expansion of anti-retroviral therapy and increasing access to other treatment options.
In Odisha, HIV incidence in 2017 has declined sharply to 0.06 per 1000 uninfected population and is lower than the national average of 0.07. States like Karnataka, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal have much higher incidence than the State.
The State is estimated to have had around 603 HIV positive women who gave birth in 2017 and needed treatment for Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV.
Health Secretary Dr Pramod Kumar Meherda said there has been significant achievement on prevention as well as treatment front.
“The implementation of anti-retroviral therapy programme is being strictly monitored and strengthened to drastically reduce both prevalence and incidence,” he added.