OVER one-third of the total HIV positive people live in Dhaka, the highest among 23 high-risk districts of the country which are under surveillance. The number of people living with HIV in Dhaka is 2,572 of whom 35 per cent are the returnee migrants, sometimes the returnee migrants hide their disease and spread it in the families. The overall rate of HIV positive among the returnee migrants and non-resident Bangladeshis in the country is 20 per cent. The government should take precautions steps to prevent the spread of HIV and aware people to exercise a healthy life.
In Bangladesh, still 50 per cent HIV positive cases are missing as only 7,400 cases out of the total 14,000 are detected, posing great risk. HIV-AIDS prevalence is 0.01 per cent among the general population and 3.99 per cent among key populations, include female sex workers, transgender and who use drugs by injection. As of 2019, a total of 7,374 people were HIV positive of whom 1,242 died. In 2019, a total of 919 new cases were detected of whom over 100 were from the Rohingya community in Bangladesh. The rate of positivity among the Rohingya population is 0.8 per cent which is very high.
The highest number of HIV positive people lives in Dhaka city, followed by Chattogram 2,008, Sylhet 1,219, Khulna 650, Rajshahi 192, Barishal 179, Mymensingh 86 and Rangpur 68. The situation is worse because of the neighbouring countries, especially India, from where truckers and traders engage in trans-border roaming and convey the virus. There are 10 brothels in the country of which 4,421 confirmed HIV cases are under the government programme along with 28,000 transgender.
HIV detection rate has increased as there are 28 testing centres in the country. As the number of positive cases is very low in Bangladesh, all infected are getting all treatment and test free of cost. Experts asked for positive media role in removing the misconception, prejudices from the society and discrimination towards AIDS patients.
