The first case of HIV positive in the Indian Armed Forces was detected in the year 1990. And in the following years, the numbers only grew, showing a sharp rise in the graph of HIV cases. But for last two three years the graph has been stable. Stated Major Gen. P. Arora, Addl. DGAFMS, who was in Pune to attend National IEC workshop on HIV/AIDS organized by department of preventive and social medicine, AFMC.

Talking to this correspondent she said that after the year 1990, Armed Forces witnessed whopping figure of 500-600 HIV cases, being added per annum assuming worrisome magnitude for the Armed Forces. And as per the statistics available over 3500 cases have been reported from the three services over the last decade. "But now there is stability in the number of HIV cases, which has not shown any growth nor reduction for last two - three years," noted she.

She further revealed that navy contributed around 10% of HIV cases, while the share from the air force was 2% and others contributed around 7%. The reduction has come as a result of the awareness programmes and systematic surveillance in the Forces, she averred.

Dwelling on the reason for the prevalence of the disease amongst Forces she elaborated, "Given the fact that recruits for the services come form the cross section of the society, Armed Forces cannot remain insulated from this increasing disease burden. More so because of the nomadic nature of their occupation the families of armed forces personnel are also at risk of HIV."

Considering the increasing menace of the epidemic, Maj. Gen. Arora pointed towards some of the priority areas. She stressed on placing the problem on the Commanders agenda at all levels of hierarchy, requiring sustained commitment and monitoring by the commanders of the disease occurrence and prevention efforts. She further expressed the need of an enhanced policy and support to build capacity at Command, Area, Formation and Unit level. There is also a need to scale up the behavioral change activities and targeted interventions among risk behaviours, vulnerable groups and recruits/young soldiers, she stated and further pointed towards the need of involvement of various agencies in the Forces such as women's organization, religious and regimental institutions, education branch, training centres and civil society.

Interestingly, Maj. Gen. Arora revealed that the Forces have already taken a step towards sensitizing the young recruits through religious preaching. The other main strategy towards spreading awareness amongst the three services is through IEC (Information, Education and Communication) which aims at bringing behavioural change to prevent HIV infection at the individual level and to build the capacity at the macro level to deal with the multifaceted challenges of this deadly disease. To fulfill this aim, Station Health Organisation has been developed as the IEC nodes. "Presently there are such 52 IEC nodes and eight immuno-deficiency centres present across the country," informed she.