“Goa does not have a single village unaffected by HIV infection”, Minister for Health Services Laxmikant Parsekar stated in the State Legislative Assembly on Monday.
Replying to a question on the "number of HIV cases in the State", tabled by Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Nilesh Cabralduring during the question hour in the State Legislative Assembly in the on-going monsoon session, Mr. Parsekar disclosed that there are nearly 15,000 people affected with HIV infection, which means that one per cent of people in the State are affected with it. He went on to say that there is not a single village in the State which will have no case of HIV infection.
The tiny coastal tourist State has a population of slightly over 14 lakh and more than 300 villages.
Replying to a supplementary question, the Minister said that the number of people affected with HIV has been gone down in recent years.
He further stated that annually the number has gone down by almost half since 2009.
Giving statistics, he said that from 2003 till 2008, the State was recording around 1,000 cases annually. But since 2009, the number has gone down to about 550 cases, annually. He attributed the decline to awareness measures taken up by the State government in association with NGOs.
In 2012 and 2013, he said Goa reported 554 and 532 new cases, respectively, indicating the declining trend. In the current year so far, 246 fresh HIV cases were reported.
Coastal areas most affected:
Only last week, speaking at a function to inaugurate Goa State Legislative Forum on HIV/AIDS organized by Goa State AIDS Control Society and Goa Legislative Assembly the Health Minister had said that the coastal areas of the tourist State were most vulnerable to the infection as per the statistics available with his department.
He warned that 95 per cent of the infection takes place due to unsafe sex. He was happy that there was a decreasing trend because of the awareness and also due to interventions.
He had said that it was a cause of concern that since 1989, 1 per cent of the population of the State is infected by HIV infection.
“We are aiming at taking this trend to zero in next five years,” he had said.
Principal Health Secretary Parimal Rai had disclosed that the four coastal taluks of the coastal tourist State had 58 per cent of the cases of HIV infected.
