Inter Press Service - November 8, 2000
Ranjit Devraj

In the last two years, the number of HIV positive people per thousand in Manipur, has plunged from 177 to just 20, say figures published in NACO's new Sentinel Survey. The state now has a 'seropositivity' level of 0.43 percent, compared to the national average of 0.7 percent.

However, independent public health experts and some non- governmental organisations (NGOs) are again accusing national AIDS authorities of fudging figures to satisfy foreign donors.

The national AIDS authority has again stirred up a controversy, with its new figures. Some months ago, the agency criticised, what it described as "inflated" estimates of HIV prevalence in the country, made by international AIDS control agencies.

The national AIDS body then challenged figures released by the U.N. AIDS programme (UNAIDS), which showed that more than four million Indians had HIV in the year 1999.

According to Gordon Alexander, a senior UNAIDS official in India, the figure was estimated using "an internationally accepted model based on experience in various parts of the world."

However, India's Health Minister C P Thakur was not amused. "Only NACO has the machinery to gather statistics on HIV/AIDS in the country and is the only entity authorised to release them to the public," he announced at a press conference held to challenge the UNAIDS statistics.

Now it is NACO's turn to be accused of producing unreliable statistics. Doubts were expressed in the press not only about the findings for Manipur, but other states.

Thus, in southern coastal Kerala state, the number of HIV positive persons has remained static at 215 for the past four years, according to the NACO publication. So has the number of AIDS cases at 102.

However, NACO's chief Prasada Rao has blamed states for providing unreliable information to his agency. "States provide the figures on the basis of patients seen in hospitals. But these are not dependable," Rao said. Often, states fail to update figures, he added.

But NGOs working in the field of AIDS control are not satisfied and for years have accused NACO of publishing unreliable statistics. One well known group, Joint Action Council (JAC), has even accused NACO of deliberately publishing inflated statistics in the past to satisfy the World Bank, which is the main source of funds for the Indian AIDS control programme.

The JAC chief, Purushottaman Mulloli has charged NACO's head Rao of "misleading the public and Parliament for several years and for whipping up a fear psychosis in the country."

Independent observers and professionals have long complained about unreliable public health statistics in India.

"No figure on any disease is reliable and often officials in the health ministry take advantage of this to support policies they wish to promote," says Ute Schumann, a former consultant to a major European Union population programme in India.

Others in the country have expressed concern that the large foreign funding for AIDS control has diverted the attention of Indian health authorities away from more pressing public health priorities.

"Did the rise of (HIV) cases in Manipur have anything to do with the fact that huge funds are coming in from international funding organisations and bilaterals who have rushed in, in good faith perhaps, to help tackle an 'epidemic'?' wrote well-known journalist Sanjoy Hazarika, who belongs to north-east India.

"There are scores of NGOs which exist on paper and have made a fortune out of this AIDS scare. Go to anyone who knows the situation in Manipur and the northeast," he added in an article in the 'Asian Age' newspaper.

Hazarika, who is with the prestigious Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, accused NACO of promoting for years, the "stereotype of irresponsible, sexually permissive communities," in India's northeast.

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