5.6 million people living with HIV in India

Current estimates

In 2006 UNAIDS estimated that there were 5.6 million people living with HIV in India, which indicated that there were more people with HIV in India than in any other country in the world.¹⁹ In 2007, following the first survey of HIV among the general population, UNAIDS and NACO agreed on a new estimate – between 2 million and 3.1 million people living with HIV.²⁰ In 2008 the figure was estimated to be 2.31 million.²¹ In 2009 it was estimated that 2.4 million people were living with HIV in India, which equates to a prevalence of 0.3%.²² While this may seem low, because India's population is so large, it is third in the world in terms of greatest number of people living with HIV. With a population of around a billion, a mere 0.1% increase in HIV prevalence would increase the estimated number of people living with HIV by over half a million.