HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC IN NORTHEAST ALARMING: REPORT
- The status of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Northeast is indeed alarming, said a report by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
- The AIDS-related mortality per 1,00,000 population in India was estimated to be the highest in Manipur (36.86), followed by Mizoram (28.34), Nagaland (26.20), Andhra Pradesh (21.76), Puducherry (15.33), Meghalaya (11.08) and Telangana (10.79), the NACO report added.
- NACO report said evidence has emerged globally that HIV-infected people are more at Covid-19 death risk as compared to HIV-negative patients.
- The trend of Intravenous Drug Users (IDU) is rising at a rocket speed among the youth between 15 and 20 years in several north-eastern states, especially in Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland.
- Mizoram with 2.04 per cent, in two other north-eastern states Manipur and Nagaland, the HIV prevalence rates are 1.43 per cent and 1.15 per cent per one million people, respectively.
- The drugs were smuggled from Myanmar which shares 1,643 km of unfenced border with four north-eastern states —Mizoram (510 km), Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km) and Nagaland (215 km).
- The drugs mainly the Methamphetamine tablets (also called Yaba tablet or party tablet) contains a mix of methamphetamine and caffeine and are misused as high-dosage drugs in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries, besides India.
- State and Union Territory (UT)-wise, incidence per 1,000 uninfected population was estimated to be the highest in the three north-eastern states of Mizoram (1.18 per 1,000 uninfected population), Nagaland (0.73) and Manipur (0.34) in 2019. Among Female Sex Worker (FSW), incidence (percentage) in the country was as high as 2.12 per cent in Meghalaya, followed by 1.14 per cent in Mizoram and Nagaland.
- The report said the state and UT-wise, annual AIDS-related deaths were estimated to have declined from 2010 to 2019 across the country excluding Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Assam.
- Nationally the annual new HIV infections had decreased by 37 per cent since 2010. The decline in annual new HIV infections had been witnessed in all states and UTs except Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Chandigarh.
- Except for Manipur, the HIV prevalence in the north-eastern states has shown a stable to rising trend due to a relatively higher number of annual new HIV infections. Annual new HIV infections have increased in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura while being almost stable in Mizoram and Nagaland during 2010-2019.”
- There is a need for community-driven integrated AIDS response in these states on an urgent basis to respond to the growing HIV problem in the region,” the NACO report said.
- The Golden Triangle is the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name “Golden Triangle”—coined by the CIA—is commonly used more broadly to refer to an area of approximately 950,000 square kilometres (367,000 sq mi) that overlaps the mountains of the three adjacent countries.
- Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent, it has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world since the 1950s. Most of the world’s heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when Afghanistan became the world’s largest producer.