7 months ago
2
Kerala has 1 of the lowest HIV prevalence rates successful the state astatine 0.07% arsenic against the nationalist prevalence complaint of 0.20%.
However, the State’s concerns regarding HIV stems from the information that caller HIV infections person been going up steadily successful the State amongst the 15-24 twelvemonth property radical successful the past 3 years.
When work unneurotic with the information that 62.6% of the individuals who contracted HIV successful the past 3 years successful Kerala had got the corruption done unsafe heterosexual enactment involving aggregate partners, the emerging representation is so concerning.
1,213 infections successful 2024
Going by the information disposable with the Kerala State AIDS Control Society, the State reported 1,213 caller HIV infections successful 2024. The State has a full of 23,608 radical surviving with HIV.
In the 3 years betwixt 2022 and 2025 (October), Kerala detected 4,477 caller HIV cases. While the bulk are men (3,393), determination are 1,065 women (of whom 90 are large women) and 19 transgenders.
“New infections during this three-year play person much oregon little been steady. However, what is alarming is the dependable summation successful caller HIV infections successful the 15-24 twelvemonth property radical successful Kerala. In 2022, caller infections successful the 15-24 twelvemonth property radical was 9%, which accrued to 12% successful 2023 and 14.2% successful 2024,” a elder authoritative pointed out.
In 2025, betwixt April and October, the proportionality of caller HIV infections among the 15-24 twelvemonth property radical has already touched 15.4%, indicating that HIV prevention activities and messaging volition person to beryllium intensified successful this susceptible property group.
KSACS’ information shows that amongst those who contracted HIV betwixt 2022 April and 2025 October, 62.6% of the individuals got infected done the heterosexual route, involving aggregate partners.
During the aforesaid period, portion 24.6% of individuals contracted the corruption done homosexual oregon bisexual route, 8.1 % who contracted the corruption were injecting cause users, who indulged successful needle sharing. Mother-to-child transmission accounted for 0.9% of the cases. In the lawsuit of 3.7% infections, the reasons are chartless oregon non-specific and successful 0.1 %, determination could beryllium much than 1 reason.
Going by the inclination successful caller infections, the KSACS reckons that Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Kozhikode are the precedence districts for HIV prevention programmes for the State, successful that order.
Kerala remains a low-prevalence, high-performance State successful HIV power and leads successful viral load suppression and work coverage. But it has its task chopped retired . The State volition person to accelerate its HIV prevention activities amongst the youth, arsenic good arsenic mobile populations and specifically code the gaps successful consciousness and behavioural aspects.
