Department of Health and Human Services
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

HIV/AIDS in India

Overview of the Epidemic

India has been battling an HIV/AIDS epidemic since the first case was identified in Chennai, Tamil Nadu in 1986. Since then, the number of HIV-infected persons has increased to an estimated 5.7 million, second only to South Africa. The overall adult prevalence rate is estimated at 0.9%. However, 111 of the 6000 districts in India have prevalence rates greater than 1 percent. There is substantial variation in HIV prevalence among and within states and districts. The epidemic in India is considered to be a concentrated epidemic with high-risk groups including persons with sexually transmitted infections (STI), female sex workers (FSW), truckers, and injecting drug users (IDU). Sexual transmission accounts for over 85% of HIV infections in India. An increasing number of individuals who are perceived as low risk are becoming infected, especially women and youth. India's population of 1 billion makes the challenge of containing the present concentrated epidemic even harder.

CDC HIV/AIDS Activities in India

Prevention:

• Working to ensure that prevention, treatment and care projects address social norms and gender with activities such as the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society Women's Self Help Group intervention that focuses on sexuality, spousal relations, empowerment issues, HIV awareness, HIV stigma, and community mobilization.
• Developing a youth-focused training curriculum and other innovative training tools.
• Supporting counseling and testing through activities such as follow-up counseling tools to help counselors and HIV peer educators to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV.
• Supporting behavioral change strategies in prevention, including prevention with persons living with HIV/AIDS.
• Providing technical and financial assistance to local Networks of Positive People. .

Care and Treatment:

• Working to develop improved standards of care including accreditation in HIV care initiatives and development of “Standards of HIV Care” document and other tools to measure the quality of HIV medical care, and creating networks of trained care providers to improve HIV care practices and trainings.
• Initiating basic HIV services at the Primary Health Center (PHC) level by adding trained personnel, supplying drugs and test kits, creating interest in HIV care among existing PHC and district staff, and implementing monitoring systems.

Laboratory, Strategic Information, and Other Capacity Building:

• Working to develop regional centers of excellence for HIV programs. For instance, CDC provides funding and technical support to the Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine (GHTM), which is now a Center of Excellence and is the largest HIV care hospital in India.
• Building human capacity to train future leaders in HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment through activities such as the Public Health Field Leader Fellowship program and the HIV Clinical Fellowship Program at GHTM.
• Providing technical support and mentorship for local, state and national-level governmental agencies including placement of technical experts in State AIDS Control Societies (SACS) and the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and strategic planning and technical support to State Project Directors (policy makers) and other senior staff.
• Strengthening laboratory infrastructure in India by providing laboratory support to selected public and private sector laboratories to improve the quality of services.
• Supporting guidelines development and training for quality improvement in public sector laboratories including those of the Armed forces and in private sector laboratories.