Nearly 70,000 children living with HIV virus in India
http://www.spiritindia.com/health-care-news-articles-12404.html

Indian Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Panabaka
Lakshmi said paediatric antiretroviral ARV drugs are available at 127
centres across the country.

She said as per the revised estimates, there are 70,000 HIV infected
children in the country and nearly 21,000 new infections occur in
children every year.

"Following the launch of paediatric ART initiative in November 2006,
more than 18,000 infected children have been identified and currently
nearly 6,500 eligible children are receiving ARV paediatric drugs,"
she said.

Denying that there was any shortage of ARV drugs, she said about
17,000 children are availing them.

The minister said the estimates for the year 2006 recently released
by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), supported by UNAIDS
and WHO, indicated that there are around two million to 3.1 million
people living with HIV in the country.

Noting that the epidemic has stabilised at 0.36 per cent prevalence
level during the last four years, she said in 2006 and 2005, the HIV
figure in the country stood at 2.47 million.

By using the new method of estimation, she said the number of HIV
infected persons in 2004 was found to be at 2.44 million.

Andhra Pradesh, which has a prevalence rate of 1.6 per cent, has
around 4,79,866 people infected with the virus, while in Manipur,
having a prevalence rate of 1.68 per cent, the figure stands at
22,010.

In Nagaland with a prevalence rate is 1.27 per cent, around 15,277
people have been infected with the virus.