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New Delhi: The Indian capital is home to over 32,000 HIV/Aids patients and at least one million more are very much vulnerable to the deadly disease, the Delhi State Aids Control Society (Delhi SACS) said yesterday.
"Though Delhi is low HIV prevalence state, it is highly vulnerable to the deadly disease as the high risk population is spread across the city. Of the total population of 16 million, at least one million are high-risk groups," said B.S. Banerjee, project director of Delhi SACS.
"The east, north, northeast and central districts of the state are more vulnerable," he said. He also cited the floating population, number of truckers, people living away from homes and cheap sex as primary reasons behind the disease.
Unsafe practices
Banerjee said while nearly 77 per cent of the spread of disease is through unsafe sexual practices, Intravenous drug use is responsible for 8.79 per cent of the cases and infected blood transfusion causes 7.14 per cent of cases.
He said more and more commercial sex workers and drug addicts are falling victim to the disease but the disease prevalence among men having sex with men have reduced from 20.4 per cent in 2005 to 11.73 per cent last year.
Delhi is home to over 61,600 female sex workers, nearly 30,000 men having sex with men and over 17,100 intravenous drug users.
"We know the treatment is costly but let me clarify that all HIV positive who come to us get free medication. Currently over 6,000 are availing treatment in Delhi," Banerjee said. In total, India is home to 2.5 million HIV/Aids patients.
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