Agencies Posted online: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 at 1251 hours IST Updated: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 at 1255 hours IST
Paris, April 20: India has now outstripped South Africa as the country with the highest tally of people living with AIDS or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the head of the global fund said here today.
Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, said, "The official statistics show India in second place and South Africa in first place."
But, Feachem said, "The official statistics are wrong. India is in first place. The epidemic (in India) is growing very rapidly. It is out of control. There is nothing happening in India today that is big or serious enough to prevent it.”
The UN agency UNAIDS' latest official figures for the national prevalence of HIV/AIDS were published in July 2004, giving the estimated incidence as at the end of 2003.
South Africa had the highest total of any country in the world, with an estimated 5.3 million infected adults and children in a range of 4.5 to 6.2 million. India's total was put at 5.1 million, but the range estimate was far wider -- 2.5 to 8.5 million -- to reflect the many unknowns about the state of the pandemic there. “India has to wake up and India has to take this very, very seriously,” Feachem said on Tuesday.
Without action, "Millions and millions and millions of Indians are going to die," he added, "The epidemic will grow faster, much faster, in (India's) Hindu population than in Muslims," as circumcision is an acknowledged protective factor against the AIDS virus.
