Bengaluru: Social stigma, a big hurdle in combating AIDS

Bengaluru: Every month, the District AIDS Prevention and Control Unit witnesses some 225 AIDS cases and about 10 pregnant women are found having AIDS at ante-natal clinic attendees (ANC).

Until now, the city has had some 34,830 pre- Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) registration across the seven ART Centres, out of which 16,000 are on ART treatment.

“Our positivity rate has come down drastically, while earlier it was 2 per cent, now it is 0.68 per cent for general clients and 0.08 per cent for pregnant women,” said Dr Asha T.H., in charge district AIDS control officer, Bengaluru Urban. She also informed that some 5,765 deaths have happened until now in the city due to the disease.

“There is too much of floating population and hence we have to constantly work on the awareness camps at places like railway stations, Santes, where people gather,” she added.  The State reports a rather gloomy picture when it comes to death - 59,638, including men, women, transgenders and children. Despite, Karnataka coming down from the fifth spot to the eighth spot in terms of high prevalence the disease.

In 2017-18, 64 ART centres and 196 link ART centers, including link plus ART centres, have been functioning. The cumulative number of HIV cases registered at ART centres until September 2017 was 3,11,896 out of which, 1,48,545 cases are alive and on ART. “The major route of transmission of HIV in Karnataka is unprotected sex and HIV is primarily considered to be a sexually transmitted infection. A person with STI/RTI is two to nine  times prone to get HIV. Hence, control of STIs contributes significantly to the reduction in HIV transmission,” said  Givindraju, Joint Director IEC, Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society (KSAPS).  Up to 40 per cent of HIV transmission can be cut down by controlling STI, he added.

The biggest hurdle to effective intervention and control is the stigma attached to the disease.