According to this BBC NEWS article, India is contesting a claim made by a member of Global Fund to Fight AIDS, that their country has surpassed South Africa to have the greatest number of people testing positive for HIV.
The Indian government claims it counts 5.1 million victims of the virus, 200,000 fewer than South Africa's numbers as cited by UN's offices.
But, according to the beeb's article, "independent experts say the number of people infected in India could be anywhere between 2.5 million and 8.5 million - because of the lack of reliable data here in relation to the HIV pandemic."
It goes on: "Anjali Gopalan of the Naz Foundation, an non-government organisation working with HIV-infected people, said the statistics did not look reliable.
"'We have seen the numbers of the infected grow rapidly. Each and every confirmed case hides at least two more. This means the number of infected could be as high as 15 million,' she said."
As far as I can tell, once you get past a million or so -- if the government and the general populace refuse to acknowledge that there's a problem with a lethal virus -- the growth has become exponential, and numbers mean nothing but the tolling of bells.
National reputation should always come second to public health. Didn't we learn that in the 1980s?
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