SRINAGAR, India, Dec 24 (AFP) - Prisoners in Indian Kashmir including captured Muslim rebels will be tested for AIDS in an effort to stem the disease's spread, the region's health minister said Wednesday.
Lal Singh said the AIDS tests would be conducted during weekly medical checkups of inmates.
"This forms part of a new system being evolved to check the spread of HIV/AIDS," Singh said in a statement.
He said prisoners were particularly prone to HIV, although no figures are available as they have not been tested for the virus in the past.
"This will help them in restraining from the wrong path," he said without elaborating.
Indian Kashmir, a Himalayan region of 10 million people, has an estimated 20,000 HIV-positive residents. The Muslim-majority province is in the throes of a 14-year insurgency against Indian rule that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
India officially has 4.58 million HIV cases, more than any country except South Africa which has around five million.
Authorities in Indian Kashmir have been trying to fight AIDS by putting up billboards encouraging the use of condoms and requesting that Islamic clerics stress religious restrictions on sex outside of marriage.
Medical authorities say most HIV infections in Indian Kashmir are caused by transfusions of blood which often goes untested in the violence-prone region's hospitals.
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