“We are not in a position to bring the number of new infections to zero by 2015. [break]
It would be a great achievement if we succeed in bringing down the daily infections to six by then,” said Director of the National Center for AIDS and STD Control (NCASC) Dr Krishna Kumar Rai.
The NCASC revealed a fresh data on HIV/AIDS in Nepal Tuesday which said 16,000 persons have tested positive. While it is estimated that an additional 48,000 people have been infected, they are yet to be tested. The estimation, churned out by epidemiology estimation software fed on various fragmented data, is an indication to the enormity of the challenge facing Nepal´s mission to bring down the rate of fresh infections.
These untested but positive persons do not know that they have been infected with HIV and may be transmitting it to other persons. “We should initiate a ´Know your status´ campaign encouraging everybody to get tested personally,” Dr Rai stressed. Dr Rai said the fear of social stigma should be reduced to encourage people to go forward and get tested.
NCASC claimed that there has been significant improvement in controlling transmission in high risk section of the population like injecting drug users--where the prevalence has come down to 4.2% from 60% a few years ago--female sex workers, clients of sex workers, labor migrants and men who have sex with men.
But alarmingly around 16,800 housewives, considered being at low risk, and 15,700 low-risk men have been suspected of being positive and the battle has to be waged in this traditionally low-risk section of the population for success of AIDS control program, NCASC said.
Dr Rai said the decreasing flow of donor funds due to the global financial crisis can also derail Nepal´s bid to curb the spread of AIDS. The exact figure of annual expenditure on AIDS in Nepal cannot be estimated as the NGOs and INGOs, which spend over 90% of the total money, refuse to reveal the amount spent citing secrecy, according to Dr Rai. "The government provides just about 4% of the money spent with the rest coming from donors,” Dr Rai claimed.
The fresh data released by NCASC puts the average AIDS death toll at 4,701 per year which just about offsets around 4,760 fresh infections per year at the rate of 13 per day.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has lauded Nepal´s efforts in reducing the rate of fresh infections but warned against complacency in the future. Issuing a press statement on the eve of World AIDS Day it said, "Nepal is one of at least 33 countries that have achieved significant decline in rate of new HIV infections, but significant challenges remain in tackling the epidemic."
“We are optimistic that increasing efforts to address HIV and AIDS in Nepal are beginning to pay off, with the rate of new HIV infections decreasing by more than 25 percent,” the statement quoted Dr Maria Elena G Filio-Borromeo, UNAIDS Country Coordinator as saying.
“The 2010 UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic gives Nepal an encouraging scorecard on some key indicators in the past few years, such as an increase in condom use, a jump in the number of people accessing anti-retroviral medication, and a greater overall awareness among the population about HIV and AIDS. But despite this good news, progress remains fragile, and Nepal must continue to address formidable obstacles on several fronts,” Dr Filio-Borromeo added.
Similarly, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) also issued a statement Tuesday urging increase in HIV/AIDS support services and treatment for migrants in Asia saying they are largely absent at present.
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