Uttar Pradesh tops the list.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
A total of 2,234 persons have been infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in India after blood transfusion in the last 17 months.
The shocking data was brought out by Mumbai-based RTI activist Chetan Kothari, after the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) responded to a Right to Information (RTI) query, reported The Hindu.
“I wanted to know what is the government doing to ensure people have access to safe blood,” Kothari told AFP. “The data shows blood is not being screened for HIV despite so much awareness,” he added.
Uttar Pradesh tops the list with 361 cases reported from October 2014 to March 2016 followed by Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi with 292, 276 and 264, respectively. No such cases were reported from Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and Tripura.
However, the government has questioned the data and denied any irregularities connected with blood transfusion.
“There are several occasions when patients do not declare the exact reason or means of transmission because of societal pressure or even lack of awareness and sometimes ignorance. Therefore, the data cannot be considered 100 percent accurate,” the Times of India quoted an unnamed official as saying.
NACO is the organization responsible for safe blood transfusion in India. According to the law, donors must be screened before transfusion to ensure that they don’t have transmissible infections of HIV, HBV and hepatitis C, malaria, and syphilis.
According to the official data, NACO has a collection of 30 lakh units of blood until September 2014. Voluntary Blood Donation accounts for about 84 percent of the total blood units collected.
“These are unfortunate cases and we are working towards the goal of zero transmission. Having said that, these numbers must be looked in the context of the scale of our HIV program. For example, 20 years ago, nearly 8-10 percent of total HIV infections were coming to transfusions. Currently, that figure is below 1 percent. We have conquered this route of infection. It is now legally mandatory for every blood bank to screening the units before giving it to a patient,†Naresh Goyal, Deputy Director General, NACO told The Hindu.
More than two million people live in India with HIV/AIDS.