Officials find it hard to trace high-risk groups

KOCHI: The incidence of HIV in the traditional  high-risk groups, namely sex workers and homosexuals, has come down to the same level as that among other population, the official records said. However, with working atmospheres in these groups undergoing rapid changes and identification becoming increasingly difficult, all of it might not necessarily be good news.“Homosexuals and sex workers were once the major high-risk groups. But today, the incidence in these groups has gone down substantially. In the case of homosexuals, this has gone down from about 25 new cases in the district in 2007 to about 4 cases last year. Today, the ratio of incidence in these groups with that in the general category is almost on par, said Binu E Punnachalil, district programme manager of District AIDS Prevention and Control Unit.This ratio can be seen on the treatment side too. “The number of new cases among sex workers is very less. They are aware of the precautions and preventive measures to avoid AIDS. They come here to collect condoms and give them to their clients. This might be one of the reasons for the numbers to go down,” said Dr Radhalakshmi, a physician at the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centre at the Ernakulam General Hospital.Specific targeting of these groups might be another reason for the low incidence. However the officials also confess that changes in their working culture might be hindering the identification of the group members. “Earlier it was very easy to identify sex workers and homosexuals, as there where some hot spots in the city. Once you identify them, it was easy to track the numbers since the people in the group knew each other. But now, with bookings happening over mobile phones things have changed. Often, there are no common meeting points or hot spots. The intercourse is often home-based. So it becomes very difficult to track these people. Moreover, in many of these cases, the people belong to higher economical scale and they are often reluctant to come to within our coverage,” said the district programme manager.This means that people under the high-risk groups can remain unidentified and may get counted among general category, which can further take a toll on our AIDS Prevention Measures.