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Concerns in Maharashtra as over 12,500 HIV patients who discontinued treatement are untracable

The report has raised concerns that the missing patients may be risking their own lives and unknowingly spreading the infection to other people.

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25,000 HIV patients across Maharashtra have stopped treatment since 2012, and more than half of them are untraceable, Hindustan Times reported on Monday.

The report has raised concerns that the missing patients may be risking their own lives and unknowingly spreading the infection to other people.

 The Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS) compiled this data after health workers went looking for patients who had not turned up for treatment at government centres.

Patients are considered to have stopped treatment, or ‘loss-to-follow-up’, if they do not show up at government centres for more than three months.  

MSACS officials now plan to check if such patients, after stopping treatment at government centres, are taking medicines in the private sector.

Recently, DNA reported an increase in the number of deaths due to Human Immunodeficiency Virus in 2017-18 as compared to 2016. Between April 2017 and March 2018, the total number of deaths due to HIV in Maharashtra is 1,327, of which Mumbai reported 116 deaths.

Whereas, Mumbai had reported 72 HIV deaths between April 2016 and March 2017, as depicted in the data collected from the Health Management Information System (HMIS) website.

The 2016-17 data shows that the state reported a total number of 1,390 HIV deaths in Maharashtra. Even in the data available for 2015-16, the number of HIV deaths in Mumbai was pegged at 44.

The data for the three years show an alarming trend of the HIV deaths rising in the city.

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