Socio-Economic Conditions of the HIV Infected Male Patients: A Case Study in Rims Y.S.R. Kadapa

Abstract

The Indian epidemic is concentrated among vulnerable populations at high risk for HIV. The concentrated epidemics are driven by unprotected sex between sex workers and their clients and by injecting drug use with contaminated injecting equipment. In India, sexual transmission is responsible for 87.4 per cent of the reported HIV cases and HIV prevalence is high among sex workers (both male and female) and their clients. A large proportion of women with HIV appear to have acquired the virus from their regular partner who was infected during paid sex.  Overall HIV prevention efforts targeted at sex workers are increasing in India. However, the context of sex work is complex and enforcement of outdated laws often acts as a barrier against effective HIV prevention and treatment efforts. In 1991, the Government of India and the World Bank expanded their collaboration on infectious disease control programmes and by 1992 the first National AIDS Control Project was launched with a World Bank credit of US$84 million. At the end of 2011, an estimated 34 million people were living with HIV worldwide, with two-thirds of them living in sub-Saharan Africa. This reflects the continued large number of new HIV infections and a significant expansion of access to antiretroviral therapy, which has helped reduce AIDS-related deaths, especially in more recent years. The number of people dying of AIDS-related causes fell to 1.7 million in 2011, down from a peak of 2.2 million in the mid-2000s; in 2012 alone 700,000 AIDS related deaths were averted.