Three hundred and seventy seven personnel in the armed forces are afflicted with the dreaded AIDS, though the government claims the disease is now on a downward slide.
The figure was as high as 501 in 2001, according to Defence Minister A K Antony, who said in the last five years the number of personnel affected had been brought down to 377 in 2006.
The minister who gave the information in a written reply in Lok Sabha did not say where the personnel had contracted the dreaded disease.
Antony, however, said the defence ministry was carrying out surveillance of high risk groups such as personnel coming to and returning from UN peacekeeping missions, patients of sexually transmitted diseases as well as blood donors.
He told Parliament that armed forces' medical services were now running a comprehensive prevention and control programme against the HIV disease in close coordination with the National AIDS control organisation and the UN AIDS programme.