Mumbai, May 20(TNN): Deaths due to AIDS (acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome) have increased significantly in the city over the last three years, according to data available with the central health ministry’s Health Management Information System. While 27 HIV-positive people died in Mumbai in 2015-16, the number rose to 72 in 2016-17 and further to 116 in 2017-18, showed the data.

“There has been a 62% increase in deaths due to the HIV/ AIDS epidemic in the last one year alone,” said RTI activist Chetan Kothari, who compiled the data. Between 2015 and 2016, the deaths rose by 166%.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic, that had peaked in the nineties, has become manageable due to availability of medicines called antiretroviral treatment (ART); a fatal disease was soon transformed into achronic condition manageable with drugs. Number of deaths fell as a result even as the number of fresh HIV infections began to show a decline in the last few years.

In this backdrop, the sudden spurt in deaths is worrisome, said doctors. A senior doctor, who didn’t want to be identified, said, “Deaths occur in poor patients in whom the current mode of treatment has failed.” Patients for whom the first line of ART no longer worked due to years of use, needed second- or third-line drugs.

“However, these new medicines are expensive and not easily available in the governmentrun programme. The poor cannot afford to buy them,” the doctor added. However, city authorities in charge of the HIV/AIDS control programme said there is a simple explanation for the increase: A sharper public health programme that has managed to track more patients.

Dr Shrikala Acharya of the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society (MDACS) said the organization had carried out intensive loss-to-follow-up drives as per central government directives to track patients who were lost to follow-up. “This drive helped us update the actual number of deaths. It could also be the reason for the increase in reported deaths,” she said, adding that the rise isn’t necessarily an actual increase in the number of deaths.

Incidentally, the HMIS data shows that the number of AIDS deaths has been steadily decreasing across Maharashtra. From 1,426 deaths in 2015-16, the figure fell to 1,390 in the following year and further to 1,327 in 2017-18. A doctor said that HIV care has improved so much that very few deaths are recorded in the private sector, where patients pay for the latest medicine and get updated care.