Not just in India, but across the globe. Epidemiologists and public health agencies who have been keeping track of the spread of the fatal disease which attacks the immune system and results in death, were clearly disturbed by the figure.

From figures ranging from one percent of the population, which would mean 10 million cases, guesstimates ranged from five, six, seven or eight million. Each time the number would be different, resulting in a rather hazy picture of the HIV scenario in India.

Now the National Aids Control Organisation, better known by its acronym NACO, the Union Health Ministry's high-profile division handling all matters relating to HIV/AIDS in India, has decided to put an end to all the speculation.

Armed with statistical backing, the NACO on Tuesday came out with a definitive figure, putting the number of HIV cases in the country at 3.5 million. "This will set at rest the kind of wild guesses and speculation which had resulted in a highly distorted picture of AIDS in India," NACO chief J V R Prasada Rao said. However, he cautions that this too is a "working estimate" of the total number of people living with HIV and AIDS in India. Apart from the all-India figure, NACO also has the breakup of HIV/AIDS cases among male and female population, the rural-urban divide and state-wise figures for every state and Union Territory in the country.

Maharashtra heads the list of states with the highest numbers of HIV sufferers, whether male, female, urban or rural, followed closely by Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Manipur and Goa. Explaining this regional concentration of HIV cases, Rao said that it was due to the high migration from these states to urban metropolitan centres like Mumbai.

Intensive research on the spreading tentacles of the disease showed the migration of sex workers, truckers and migrant labour from the southern states to Maharashtra.

In Manipur, the high incidence of the disease was due to the large presence of intra-venous drug users.

West Bengal and Gujurat have been categorised as "moderate" and the rest of the country figures in the low prevalence category.

Policy planners and health experts say that the statewise figures would prove invaluable in planning programmes to not just arrest the trend (of spread of the disease), but also in chalking out care and support systems. Statewise estimates would also sensitise state administrations to identify problem areas and gear the administration for effective appropriate measures, said Rao.

India's efforts at curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS also came in for close scrutiny at last month's Monitoring AIDS Pandemic (MAP) meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The problem was also examined from a sub-continental perspective since a major cause of the spread of HIV/AIDS was due to the trafficking of girls and children, primarily from Nepal and Bangladesh to urban centres like Mumbai and Calcutta, where they are pushed into prostitution. At the Kuala Lumpur meet, the regional countries adopted a Regional Plan of Action to tackle HIV/AIDS and its causes. A regional meeting of representatives from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan is on the anvil, where they will share expertise on AIDS prevention and control and examine government-to-government efforts to end the growing traffic in women children.