Church groups rubbish government claim of declining rate of AIDS

Chennai – Contrary to the optimistic reports of the Indian government that HIV/AIDS cases in the nation are on the decline, Christian advocacy groups have supported the claims of international agencies that the world's second most populous nation may soon overtake South Africa as the nation having the maximum reported HIV/AIDS cases.

Trouble began brewing when the government's National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) released its annual AIDS data on May 25, in the presence of Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare. Refuting the UNAIDS warning that India might soon overtake South Africa as the nation with the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases, Dr. Ramadoss said that 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 have also claimed the number of adult HIV infections in the country was less than one 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.

However, Dr. Ramadoss said that the government data was "open to question" as “the reality is far different to what the government claims." In most places, he admitted, the government did not even have proper AIDS testing and surveillance centres.

"[The reports] do not help the fight against AIDS. It gives a wrong message to all involved in the fight," said Dr. Vijay Aruldas, general secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India (CMAI), commenting on a controversy brewing over the central 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 NGO based in Chennai.

"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".

If the government accepted the AIDS figures estimated by NGOs as well as international bodies, Shyamaprasad reasoned, "the government would have no explanation to justify its tardy response to the AIDS crisis facing the country."