Resource Needs for HIV in India

Resource burden to provide necessary care, treatment, support and prevention for HIV is huge on scarce government resources. The current study tries to quantify the resource burden for HIV in India during 2009-2015. The premise being, even after revision of the estimate of PLHA from 5.2 million to 2.5 million in 2006, India still has the third largest share of PLHA in the world. We have used UNAIDS methodology to calculate PLHA, new infection, treatment needs, etc. by Spectrum and Workbook assuming three alternative scenarios which are derived based on treatment and care needs. Components of resource needs that have been considered in this study include prevention among high risk groups, service delivery and health care. The data sources include UNAIDS, Census of India, SRS, NFHS and BSS. Under the three scenarios, PLHA is projected to vary from 2.29-2.73 million in 2015 with an uncertainty bound of 2.24-2.95 million. The number of adults in need of first line ART will range from 0.6 to 1.1 million in 2015. Total resource needs for HIV is projected to be 28 percent of the health budget of Government of India in 2015.