NEW DELHI, Dec 1, 2007 (AFP) - A three-year-old HIV-infected boy was left to die in a cloth bag hung from a tree in southern India, a report said Saturday.
The child was discovered in a shopping bag hanging from a tree in southern Tamil Nadu state when villagers heard a cry on November 7, the Indian Express reported.
"It was the most inhuman thing that anyone could do to such a child," local doctor Hari Ram told the daily newspaper.
It was not clear how long the boy had been hanging from the tree.
He was later handed over to his grandmother who came forward after seeing his photograph in a newspaper on November 14, the Indian Express said.
The grandmother Kanchana said the boy must have been abandoned by his father because of illness.
Stigma and discrimination against HIV-positive people are widespread in the country of 1.1 billion people, with affected children often denied schooling.
The boy's mother died shortly after his birth and the father could not be located by authorities.
Doctors said the boy had tuberculosis -- which many HIV-positive people contract because of poor immunity -- and was so weak he looked like a six-month-old baby.
India had some 2.5 million people infected with the virus in 2006, according to a United Nations report, down from estimates of 5.7 million cases in 2005.
The sharp fall in the number of cases reflected better statistical sampling methods, the UN said.
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