Preliminary analysis suggests $258M HIV/AIDS prevention program in India may have prevented some 100,000 infections

A $258 million HIV/AIDS prevention program in six Indian states may have prevented an estimated 100,000 infections from 2003 to 2008, researchers from the Public Health Foundation of India and the University of Washington suggest in a study published in the Lancet on Tuesday, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (10/10). The analysis "concluded that infections dropped significantly in three populous southern states, a little in Tamil Nadu, and not at all in northern Manipur and Nagaland," the New York Times reports (McNeil, 10/10). "While the initial findings regarding the ... Avahan project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, come with large uncertainty due to data limitations and methodology, the study's authors say ... that investing in prevention can make a dent in one of the world's largest epidemics," AP writes (10/10).

The goal of the program "was to boost prevention among prostitutes and their customers, gays, injecting drug users and truck drivers to stop HIV from leaping from high-risk groups to the wider population," and "[t]actics included one-on-one safe-sex counseling, free condoms, exchanging used needles for sterilized ones, clinics to treat sexually-transmitted disease and advocacy work within the community," Agence France-Press reports (10/10). "The study, also funded by the Gates Foundation, explains that the conclusions do come with a degree of uncertainty, mainly because pregnant women from antenatal clinics were used as the data source even though corrections for this were factored into the calculations," AP notes, adding, "Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research in Canada, who has conducted large-scale HIV studies in India, said those data are typically used to monitor trends or changes in the epidemic, not to estimate infections averted in the general population" (10/10).