08 June,2010 08:33 AM IST | | Alifiya Khan
Body that implements AIDS programme releases annual report with old vital statistics
In 2008, there were 22.7 lakh HIV positive people living in India. In 2008, 73.5 lakh men had sex with female sex workers. In 2008, 86 per cent of HIV infections happened because of visits to female sex workers. This is a sample of the 'latest' official figures, and all these are from 2008.
Even as you wonder why the body that releases these figures has not moved on to 2010 yet, policymakers are faced with the daunting task of framing the right approach to combat HIV/AIDS without latest data in their hands.
Few new facts
The National Aids Control Organisation (NACO), theu00a0 premier organisation implementing the national AIDS programme, released its annual report for the year 2009-2010 a few days ago. Barring data about its services in the past year and certain other facts, important data like the actual number of HIV positive people in the country, their district-wise spread and behavioural trends are stale.
The annual report has NACO mentioning newer facts like the number of treatment centres for HIV positive people, condom usage, people on anti-retroviral therapy and newer HIV infections detected in the past year among different risk groups.
But it does not mention the updated or latest data on estimated number of HIV positive people in the country, which pockets ufffd urban or rural, for instance ufffd they are predominant in, knowledge and attitude of the youth towards HIV as covered under behavioural surveillance, and so on.
Planning problem
"All this data put together helps analyse and chart the course for future course of action. It shows which areas need a different approach in future policies," said an official of the Mumbai District Aids Control Society on condition of anonymity. "The reason why the latest data on prevalence and behavioural survey has not been mentioned is because last year some newer methodologies were introduced in surveillance, which delayed it all."
National Aids Research Institute (NARI) is responsible for carrying out HIV sentinel surveillance, or estimation in the western region.
"Some data used in the report is up to date, like how many new centres opened up, how many people tested and information on treatment, education and communication work done," said a NARI official. "But how do we judge the impact of these programmes if it is not known how many positive people there are or which pockets are predominantly at risk? Annual reports should give you a complete picture and it is a bit pointless to come up with a report with two-year-old data."
