05336
June 23, 2005

Activists say India making false AIDS claims

Church workers object to government claim that HIV rate is declining

by Anto Akkara

THRISSUR, India — Church activists have joined protests against an Indian government claim that the HIV/AIDS infection rate is declining, contrary to international agencies that project the world’s second-most-populous nation has more than 5 million people affected by the disease.

     “This does not help the fight against AIDS. It gives a wrong message to all involved in the fight,” commented Dr Vijay Aruldas, general secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India. He was commenting on a controversy brewing over the federal health ministry’s recent claim that only 28 000 new HIV infections had been reported in 2004, down from 520 000 the
preceding year.

     “If these figures are true, this is the biggest miracle of this century,” said K. Narayan, a leading AIDS activist from AIDS Control and Community Education Programme Trust, a non-governmental organization based in Chennai. He expressed dismay over the government claim.

     The government’s National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) released annual AIDS data on 25 May, in the presence of federal health minister Anbumani Ramadoss, who refuted the UNAIDS projection that India might soon overtake South Africa as the nation with the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases.

     According to the NACO figure submitted to UNAIDS, India has 5.13 million HIV/AIDS cases, while the South African figure given by the international body is 5.3 million.

     NACO officials claimed the number of adult HIV infections in the country was less than 1 per cent compared to 21.5 per cent in South Africa. Further, the government’s AIDS monitoring body said that only 1114 people died of AIDS in India in 2004-05 compared to 1514 in the previous year.

     The government data is “open to question,” Aruldas told Ecumenical News International. “We in the field know the reality is far different to what the government claims.” In most places, he said, the government did not even have AIDS testing and surveillance centers.

     “This (data) is really shocking,” said Dr K.M. Shyamaprasad, director of the medical and health board of the Lutheran churches in India. By playing down the figures, Shyamaprasad said the government was “trying to defend its failure to address the AIDS challenge adequately.”