AIDS To Cut India's Growth

The spread of HIV and Aids will knock almost a whole percentage point off India's average annual economic growth in the next decade, according to a United Nations-sponsored study released on Thursday.

The report – co-sponsored by India's state-run National Aids Control Organisation – is the first detailed explanation of the growing impact of the disease on India....

India has a proportionately low incidence of the disease but due to the size of its population, it is now the country with the biggest number of people affected by HIV.

The UN estimates 5.6m Indians have the disease, 90 per cent unknowingly.

The number of HIV-infected people is expected to rise to 20m to 25m by 2010 says the National Council for Applied Economic Research

That increase could pull gross domestic product growth down by 1.5 % in 10 years’ time.... The loss would be most acute in tourism and manufacturing.... UNAids believes that the NCAER projections are too pessimistic.

"We believe there will be a reversal of the epidemic in 2008-09... We’ve not seen an increase in the last three years."

Financial Times