India risks backsliding on success against HIV: UN envoy

October 11, 2015 00:07

New HIV infections in India could rise for the first time in more than a decade because states are mismanaging a prevention program by delaying payments to health workers, the United Nations envoy for AIDS in Asia and the Pacific said.

India's efforts to fight HIV have for years centered around community-based programs run for people at high risk of contracting the virus, such as sex workers and injecting drug users. The results won praise globally - annual new infections fell consistently and, overall, were reduced by more than half between 2000 and 2011.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February cut the federal AIDS budget by a fifth and asked states to fill the gap, even though their poorly-run bureaucracies were already slow in releasing funds to their AIDS prevention units. As a result, staff salaries have been delayed for months and prevention activities have slowed down.

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