The virus spreads

latest data collected from all the surveillance centres under the National Aids Control Organisation ( naco ) indicates that one in every 10 persons from high-risk groups, such as commercial sex workers, are infected with the aids -causing hiv virus in Maharashtra and Manipur. According to naco , a total of 3.03 million samples from high-risk groups clinically suspected cases of aids were screened in various surveillance centres in India. Of these, 56,409 were found to be hiv -positive, which indicates a high positive rate of 18.6 per 1,000. Maharastra recorded a hiv- positive rate of about 100 per 1,000 samples screened, while Manipur had almost 95 positive cases per 1,000 samples. Nagaland had 55 positive cases and Punjab 44 per 1000 screened samples.

The only positive news is that some of the sentinel sites showed a decreased or stabilised trend in the spread of hiv infection, indicating that the strategy adopted to arrest spread of the infection is working well, according to the naco report.