By Pinaki Das
Agartala, Dec 1 (ANI): The World AIDS Day was celebrated here today to create awareness about the fatal disease among the masses. The slogan of the day was “Youth unite for victory on AIDS”.
Over 6000 students from different schools, colleges and educational institutions, participated in the rally that started from the Stable ground.
Hundreds of students held placards with messages about AIDS written on them. The rally was jointly organized by the State National Service Scheme (NSS) Cell and the Youth Affairs department.
India has the world’s third biggest caseload of people living with the deadly virus. After originally estimating some 5.7 million were infected in India, the UN reduced that estimate to 2.5 million.
A new classification done by the National Aids Control Programme (NACO) shows that the disease is spread across as many as 20 states in 163 districts, contrary to conventional wisdom that high prevalence of HIV/AIDS is restricted to southern states and some places in the North-East.
These 163 districts have been categorised as “A districts” where more than one percent of the population and more than five percent of the high-risk group is infected with the virus.
Experts say these districts have crossed the “epidemic threshold” for the disease.
While the highest number of these “A districts” are, predictably, in states like Andhra Pradesh (21 of 25 districts fall in this category), Karnataka (24 of 27), Maharashtra (30 of 36), the surprise entrants are: New Delhi; eight districts in Bihar (including Purnia, West and East Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi and Kishanganj); five in Uttar Pradesh (Etah, Etawah, Latehar, Banda and Balrampur); five in Madhya Pradesh, including Jabalpur and Bhopal; Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Amritsar in Punjab; Jhalawar and Ganganagar in Rajasthan; and Jhajjar in Haryana.
Sikkim, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Assam are the only states, which don’t have “A districts.” (ANI)