New Delhi: Trashing estimates of the National AIDS Control Organisation that commercial sex workers are the biggest factor for HIV transmission in the country, the International Journal of STD and AIDS has said that most of the HIV transmission in India takes place through blood exposures.
NACO immediately countered the findings, saying that they have enough evidences to back the fact that "HIV infection in the country spreads mainly through heterosexual route".
"We are going to ask them for an explanation. The data doesn't give correct information on HIV epidemic in the country," PTI quoted a senior NACO official as saying.
The study by well-known researchers David Gisselquist and Mariette Correa, challenges the contentions of NACO that HIV is primarily transmitted through sex in India. Instead, they claim, sex workers account for only two to 15 per cent of HIV transmissions in India.
"Rather, common lifetime exposures like dental care (31 per cent), surgery (20 per cent), blood tests (100 per cent) and tattooing (47 per cent) are the main routes of HIV transmission in India," the study claims.
As per NACO statistics, 86 per cent of HIV transmission in India takes place through the sexual route, 2.4 per cent through injection drug use, two per cent through blood transfusion, 3.6 per cent through pre-natal transmission and 6 per cent through unspecified actions.
The researchers claim their findings were based on examination of the process of AIDS case surveillance in four high HIV-prevalence districts in southern India.
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