AIDS to kill 15 million in India in coming years
Pastor Dale Morgan
AIDS to kill 15 million in India in coming years: report*
Reuters
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; 1:48 AM
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An HIV/AIDS epidemic is expected to kill 11-15
million people in India over the next 10 to 20 years, the Times of India
reported on Wednesday, citing official census figures.
Along with the 5 million children not born to women who died young
because of the virus, India's forecast 2026 population of 1.4 billion
would be trimmed by 1.3 percent, the paper reported.
The United Nations AIDS agency (UNAIDS) says that at least 5.7-8 million
Indians live with the HIV virus, and that India has the world's highest
caseload, overtaking South Africa earlier this year.
"If we do not stop it (the AIDS epidemic) now, the fate of South Africa
will overtake us," India's minister for local self-government, Mani
Shankar Aiyar, told a meeting of rural politicians on Wednesday.
More than one of every nine South Africans in a population of 45 million
are HIV-positive.
Indian officials have not accepted the UNAIDS figure for India and
continue to cite the Health Ministry's number of 5.2 million people
living with HIV/AIDS.
But anti-AIDS groups say the real figure is higher as the stigma
attached to the disease prevents some people from reporting their
status. Other deaths are not recorded as HIV-related in medical records.
On Wednesday, government officials announced plans to rope in thousands
of rural politicians to spread the anti-AIDS message in the countryside,
where more than 60 percent of Indians live.