BHUBANESWAR: Even as HIV prevalence rate in Odisha has dropped as compared to the national average bringing it in the category III (low risk) states from category II (moderate risk), a whopping over 11,000 HIV positive people are missing with no agency having any clue of their whereabouts.
As per statistics available with Odisha State AIDS Control Society (OSACS), the state has detected 60,886 HIV-positive people since 2002. Of them, 47,390 have registered with anti-retroviral therapy (ART) centres for care, support and treatment. While 11,687 people have died of AIDS in last two decades, more than 11,000 have lost to follow-up (LFU) after registering at ART centres.
Officials said, over 8,000 patients are permanent LFU as they never returned to the treatment centre after one or two visits since 2018. As many as 2,881 HIV positive people have been identified as LFU in last three months and they are not under the radar of the OSACS and the non-government organisations working in the sector.
Project director of OSACS Dr Urmila Mishra said the HIV positive people identified as LFU might have migrated to other states and have been under treatment there. “It is not possible to track them due to absence of correct contact details. However, there is a possibility that patients among the current LFU list may return to ART centres in future if shifted temporarily to some other places. We are keeping a tab on them,” she said.
Health experts have, however, expressed concern over such a high number of LFU patients in the state. They feared that without treatment, a person may develop stage-III HIV within two to 15 years after contracting the virus. The life expectancy after a stage-III HIV diagnosis is three years. However, with effective medication, many people never develop that stage of HIV. The likelihood of opportunistic infections is much lower than it was in the past, they said.
The state’s HIV prevalence has dropped to 0.14 per cent as against the national average of 0.21 and it has 0.52 people living with HIV in one lakh population. Odisha has also reported a negative percentage change (-45.50 pc) in annual new HIV infection in last one decade.