Aizawl: A few weeks after his meeting with Mizoram Government Doctors’ Association, state health and family welfare minister Dr R Lalthangliana on Monday invited the Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitu Committee (church leaders’ committee) along with medical experts from the Mizoram State Aids Control Society (MSACS) to discuss the prevalence of HIV/AIDS cases in the state.

At the meeting, the minister stated that though Mizoram has a good health record, the spread of HIV/AIDS in the last few years has accelerated — particularly between 2013 and 2014 — at an alarming rate.

He stressed that a new prevention and awareness campaign on HIV/AIDS needs to be taken up and called on church leaders to ramp up the awareness campaigns among the youths.

Reports from MSACS director Dr Lalthlengliani indicated that in 2018 alone, 2,557 cases of HIV/AIDS were detected, of which 843 were from Aizawl district alone. She stated that nine positive cases of HIV/AIDS are reported in Mizoram every day, with the most vulnerable people aged between 25 and 34 years.

Dr Lalthlengliani also stated that the elimination of ‘infected mother to child transmission’ shall be started from 2020.

According to the Mizoram State AIDS Control Society (MSACS), 67.21% of HIV-positive cases from 2006 to March 2019 were transmitted sexually, while 28.12% cases were through infected needles shared by intravenous drug users.

Data compiled by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) in 2017 showed that 2.04% of Mizoram’s population is found to be HIV-positive against the national average of 0.2%. This puts the state with the highest record of HIV prevalence followed by Manipur (1.43%) and Nagaland (1.15%).

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