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India has the second highest number of people with the HIV/AIDS virus in the world -- roughly four million -- and 90 per cent of them don't even know it, a United Nations body said on Tuesday.
David Miller, country programme adviser for UNAIDS in India, said though people with AIDS accounted for less than one per cent of the population of more than one billion, the numbers were still "dangerously high".
"These people are unknowingly spreading the infection to others," Miller said. "In India, the epidemic is still largely a silent one. We don't have the burden of disease as in South Africa where large numbers are in hospitals."
"In sheer prevalence terms, India is where South Africa was 10 years ago. But in terms of raw numbers these figures represent the second-most infected country in the world," he said.
Miller was speaking after the release of an UNAIDS report that said about 3.97 million people live with AIDS in India, more than any country in the world, after South Africa, where about five million suffer from the disease.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS groups the World Health Organisation and the World Bank along with children's agency UNICEF, development agency UNDP, population fund UNFPA, drug control programme UNDCP, labour group ILO, and cultural agency UNESCO.
The report said the low figure does not tell the whole story. The numbers mask "serious localised epidemics", it said.
"The epidemic is spreading among the general population and beyond groups with high-risk behaviour," the report said.
"The fact that migrating men generally leave their wives and families behind increases the likelihood that they will visit sex workers while away from home -- a risk factor for both them and their families when they return home," it added.
It said the average HIV prevalence among women attending prenatal classes was higher than 2.0 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and more than 1.0 per cent in four other states -- Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur and Tamil Nadu.
Although the government has launched a nationwide programme to check the disease, India faces an uphill battle because of the enormous social and cultural stigma attached to AIDS.
AIDS has spread from traditionally high-risk groups such as prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals to large rural swathes and urban areas with huge migrant populations.
In May, UNAIDS chief Peter Piot said India would have the largest number of people in the world infected with HIV/AIDS in a few years, overtaking South Africa, if steps were not taken to curb the deadly disease.
He said India would overtake South Africa in terms of absolute numbers, but not in relative terms.
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