India: HIV prevalence among adults at 0.27%

New Delhi, Mar 22 : As per recent HIV Estimations 2012, the overall HIV prevalence among adults in India in 2011 is low at 0.27%.

"There is no study to indicate that HIV prevalence in villages as a whole is high. Also, as per Behaviour Surveillance Survey 2006, around 75.4% of rural population is aware of HIV/AIDS indicating high reach of awareness messages in the rural areas," said said Union Health & Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

He said funding for Phase III of the National AIDS Control Programme has adequately reached the village level through various projects like Link Worker Schemes, Folk Media campaign, targeted interventions etc being implemented for rural population.

"The Link Workers Scheme is implemented in 156 districts, to cover 100 villages each with significant number of High Risk Groups (Female Sex Workers, Men who have sex with Men, Injecting Drug Users, Transgenders/Hijra), vulnerable population, Bridge Population (migrants and truckers) and People Living with HIV/AIDS. The villages are selected based on situational need assessment carried out by the project," he said.

Besides, the Department of AIDS Control under the National AIDS Control Programme has developed a communication strategy to create awareness about HIV/AIDS and promote safe behaviors among vulnerable sections of people in all parts of the country, said Azad.