India's HIV/AIDS Numbers Are Inflated, Reveals New Study

A new study suggests that the methods used to estimate the number of people affected by HIV/AIDS in India are flawed. Which would make the staggering infection rate an overestimation.

According to the latest estimates by the United Nations, roughly 5.7 million people in India are infected with HIV. However, a study in the British journal BMC Medicine contradicts the figure saying that the number of people with the infection is actually lower. It could only be 40 percent of the official estimate.

However, the U.N. said it was too early to say if the data applied to India as a whole or was based on certain parts of the country.

The researchers in the study based on their findings on one district in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. This state is the severely affected place in the country.

The study was based on the collection of blood samples from 12,617 people aged between 15 and 49 years in Guntur district - one of the worst affected areas in the state.