NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: India’s fight against AIDS is being jeopardized by a cut in social spending by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, with health workers being laid off and programmes to prevent the spread of the deadly disease curtailed.
With about 2.1 million people infected with HIV in 2013, India has the most cases in the Asia-Pacific, according to the World Health Organization, but new infections have fallen more than 20 percent over the past 14 years.
Despite the progress, India accounted for most of the estimated 340,000 new infections in the Asia-Pacific last year and any cut-back to prevention programmes risks seeing rates rise, experts say.
The government anti-AIDS programme had been in trouble for more than a year, with bureaucratic delays and a funding crunch resulting in shortages of condoms and drugs.
Then in February, Modi slashed the 2015-16 central AIDS budget by 22 percent, asking states to fill the gap.
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