The Social Ion

India has a sharp increase in the number of its people living with HIV, from a few thousand in the early 1990s to around 2.47 million persons in India living with HIV (equivalent to 0.36 percent of the adult population) in 2007. With a population of over one billion, the HIV epidemic in India will have a major impact on overall spread of HIV in Asia and the Pacific and indeed worldwide. The first AIDS case in India was detected in 1986 among few sex workers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and since then HIV infection has been reported in all States and Union Territories. The spread of HIV within the country is as diverse as the societal patterns between its different regions, states and metropolitan areas. In fact, HIV in India exists in a number of epidemics, and in some places they occur within the states. The epidemics vary, from states with mainly heterosexuals transmission of HIV, to some states where injecting drugs use is the main route of HIV transmission.