Mumbai’s most vulnerable pockets are under an HIV threat. There’s a scarcity of condoms, syringes and medicines. Twenty-one NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and 13 community-based organizations (CBOs) that handle a total of 52 intervention projects for the city’s population at highest risk of contracting and spreading HIV have not received central government funds since April.

Due to the fund crisis, most NGOs and CBOs have been forced to cut corners and without funding they have been forced to default many services. This is scarier because of the fact that Mumbai has close to 60,000 HIV positive individuals and though there has been a decline in HIV rates amongst the general population it’s on the rise for high risk groups.

There are an estimated 2.34 lakh high risk groups and theseinclude female sex workers (FSW), transgender individuals, men having sex with men (MSM), intravenous drug users (IDU), truckers and migrants. Currently, HIV prevalence among FSW is as high as 27%, 18% in IDUs, 12% in MSM and 30% in the transgender population.

Source: www.health.india.com