‘4 lakh AIDS deaths in India last year, highest in world’

The report had also highlighted that India led the HIV/ AIDS table with 5.7 million people living with the disease.

The government is not willing to accept the figures easily. ‘‘Before commenting on the figures, we need to study the methodology UNAIDS has adopted. We are going to study the projections in a week or so and then only can react to it,’’ said Sujatha Rao, DG, NACO.

Rao added that the government is trying to evolve a methodology to arrive at independent estimates.

According to UNAIDS, the death figure shows the actual magnitude of the problem. ‘‘This represents the real face of the problem as we need to assess what is the cost of the epidemic to the society,’’ said Denis Broun, Country Representative of UNAIDS. ‘‘The total deaths show the magnitude of the problem. The 4-lakh (figure) is a major catastrophe in a country where only less than one per cent adults are suffering from HIV/AIDS,’’ said Broun.

In 2004, UNAIDS had objected to the Government’s claim of having just 28,000 new infections, saying the death figures were not considered. This year, NACO claimed that there were about 72,000 new cases. UNAIDS, however, has said that the 72,000 increase needs to be reviewed considering the new figures.

‘‘When the prevalence rate increases, the number of deaths also increases. People dying this time must have got infected 10 years ago,’’ said Broun.

Broun says the 4-lakh figure, however, like the 5.7 million HIV/AIDS cases, is a mathematical derivation and not a headcount. Scientists have used factors like India’s average age of survival after the infection, data on the average age of people with HIV and the number of people on Anti-Retoviral Treatment.

‘‘It is a method we have used to estimate the figures for all the countries,’’ said Broun.

The Indian government, too, is preparing a report on the number of deaths in the country. Likely to be out this month, it’s being prepared by the National Institute of Medical Statistics. The model for estimation is based on assessing the mortality of the population without HIV and comparing it with the mortality rates.

Another survey funded by the Gates Foundation and the Canadian government is basing its results on actual interviews and counts. Though the official figure of the number of people living with HIV is 5.2 million, the UNAIDS report put the figure at 5.7 million, the highest in the world. While the government gave the estimates for adult population (15 to 49 years of age), UNAIDS went ahead and estimated that an additional 1 lakh children and 4 lakh people above 50 years needed to be added. ‘‘Ours is a cradle-to-grave figure,’’ said Broun. The only silver lining: the percentage of affected population is below one per cent, in South Africa it’s 20 per cent, said L.M. Nath, former AIIMS director and an AIDS epidemiologist.

Catastrophe: UNAIDS

• Estimated AIDS deaths in India over 4 lakh in 2005

• South Africa next with estimated 3.2 lakh deaths

• India led HIV/AIDS table with 5.7 million infected

• NACO doesn’t accept figures, says methodology needs to be studied