Kumar cautions that while the findings are good news, the battle is far from over. “HIV remains a huge problem in India and we have to remain vigilant,” he said. “We’re not saying the epidemic is under control yet—we are saying that prevention efforts with high-risk groups thus far seem to be having an effect.”

Ashok Alexander, director of Avahan, the AIDS prevention initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also urges caution: “Prevention works but we have not achieved scaled prevention yet in India.”

He suggests that Jha’s data shows that the epidemic is not under control in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka while there is a more positive trend in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu where there has been the longest record of prevention.

Alexander, who looks after the $200-million AIDS initiative of the Gates Foundation feels that data is misleading as an indicator of epidemic trends in India adding that “we need data from high-risk groups that is highly missing.”