Neeraj Dhingra

National Aids control organisation · Prevention

There are 670 million people at risk of contracting lymphatic filariasis (LF) in India, which bears 40% of the global burden of the disease. The National Program to Eliminate LF was launched in 2004 first with a single-drug therapy—diethylcarbamazine (DEC), followed by a two-drug therapy—DEC + albendazole (DA). In 2017, following successful drug tr...

Problem: India and sub-Saharan Africa contributes about 85% of the global malaria burden, and India is committed to eliminating malaria by 2030. Approach: Two novel initiatives-the Malaria Elimination Demonstration Project (MEDP) in Madhya Pradesh and Durgama Anchalare Malaria Nirakaran (DAMaN) in Odisha-were initiated independently to demonstra...

Background Malaria is a major public health problem in India and accounts for about 88% of malaria burden in South-East Asia. India alone accounted for 2% of total malaria cases globally. Anti-malarial drug resistance is one of the major problems for malaria control and elimination programme. Artemether-lumefantrine (AL) is the first-line treatment...

Dengue, with rapidly evolving epidemiology, has become a major public health concern in many parts of the globe including India. Since its emergence in the country, due to congenial underlying factors for geographical spread, all states and Union Territories (UTs) are affected. While observing the trend of dengue disease in India during the past tw...

As India moves toward the elimination of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) as a public health problem, comprehensive timely case detection has become increasingly important, in order to reduce the period of infectivity and control outbreaks. During the 2000s, localized research studies suggested that a large percentage of VL cases were never reported in...

Background India has made major progress in improving control of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in recent years, in part through shortening the time infectious patients remain untreated. Active case detection decreases the time from VL onset to diagnosis and treatment, but requires substantial human resources. Targeting approaches are therefore essent...

Purpose The Hijra community is a cultural and gender grouping in South Asia broadly similar to western transgender communities, but with literature suggesting some differences in gender experience and patterns of psychosocial adversity. The present study aims to describe patterns of mental illness and psychoactive substance use in Hijra subjects an...

Introduction and aims: Non-fatal opioid overdose (NFOO) predicts future fatal opioid overdose and is associated with significant morbidity. There is limited literature on the rates and risk factors for NFOO in people who inject drugs (PWID) from India. We aimed to study the rates of NFOO and documented risk factors for NFOO, as well as knowledge-l...

Background India had the largest number of under-5 deaths of all countries in 2015, with substantial subnational disparities. We estimated national and subnational all-cause and cause-specific mortality among children younger than 5 years annually in 2000–15 in India to understand progress made and to consider implications for achieving the Sustain...

We aim to describe trends in antenatal HIV prevalence in India, at a national and regional level from consistent sentinel surveillance sites (2003-2015) among Antenatal Clinic (ANC) attendees. Data were analyzed from a total of 1,885,207 ANC attendees recruited at ANC sites. The consistent sites were grouped by years of initiation (Group 1: 2003-20...

Objective: To assess the survival probability and associated factors among children living with human immunodeficiency virus (CLHIV) receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in India. Methods: The data on 5874 children (55% boys) from one of the high HIV burden states of India from the cohort were analyzed. Data were extracted from the computerize...

With almost one-fifth of the world’s population living in India, the health status and the drivers of health loss are expected to vary between different parts of the country and between the states. Accordingly, effective efforts to improve population health in each state require systematic knowledge of the local health status and trends. While stat...

Background & objectives: Evidence-based planning has been the cornerstone of India's response to HIV/AIDS. Here we describe the process, method and tools used for generating the 2015 HIV estimates and provide a summary of the main results. Methods: Spectrum software supported by the UNAIDS was used to produce HIV estimates for India as a whole and...

Abstract selected for poster presentation in the International AIDS Conference 2016.

Between 2009-2013 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation transitioned its HIV/AIDS prevention initiative in India from being a stand-alone program outside of government, to being fully government funded and implemented. We present an independent prospective evaluation of the transition. The evaluation drew upon (1) a structured survey of transition...

Background: We characterize the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care continuum for men who have sex with men (MSM) and persons who inject drugs (PWID) across India. Methods: We recruited 12 022 MSM and 14 481 PWID across 26 Indian cities, using respondent-driven sampling (September 2012 to December 2013). Participants were aged ≥18 years and...

BACKGROUND : Medical Termination of Pregnancy was legalized in India in 1971 with an intention to reduce maternal morbidity & mortality and to reduce the social stigma attached with it. However the clause of performing MTP in the event of “Failure of Contraception” provides a scope to almost everyone for getting an MTP done & its consequent misuse....

Background Although India has demonstrated success in the overall reduction of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) incidence by 57% in the past 10 years, its control among men who have sex with men (MSM) remains a critical challenge. This paper describes the current status, geographic variability, and factors associated with HIV among MSM from the n...

For the past two decades, there has been an enduring HIV epidemic among injecting drug users (IDUs) in India, and the Indian national AIDS control program (NACP) led by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) has kept IDUs at the forefront along with other key populations, in its efforts to prevent HIV. Given this, the objective of this study...

To quantify and describe the mechanism of road traffic injury (RTI) deaths in India. We conducted a nationally representative mortality survey where at least two physicians coded each non-medical field staff's verbal autopsy reports. RTI mechanism data were extracted from the narrative section of these reports. 1.1 million homes in India. Over 122...

Developing countries face diminishing development aid and time-limited donor commitments that challenge the long-term sustainability of donor-funded programs to improve the health of local populations. Increasing country ownership of the programs is one solution. Transitioning managerial and financial responsibility for donor-funded programs to gov...

Differences in sexual networks probably explain the disparity in the scale of HIV epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa and India. HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) discordant couple studies provide insights into important aspects of these sexual networks. The authors quantify the role of male sexual behaviour in HIV transmission in married co...

Introduction India's large HIV epidemic and the potential for epidemic HIV spread in some areas demands a full understanding of HIV transmission. Factors associated with HIV infection in India include: commercial sex work, sexually transmitted infections (STI), numbers of sex partners and male circumcision. We wished to quantify effects of the abov...

Introduction Differences in sexual networks likely explain the disparity in the scale of HIV epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa and India. HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) discordant couple studies provide insights into important aspects of these sexual networks. We wished to quantify the role of male sexual behaviour in HIV transmission i...

Introduction To determine the rates of death and infection from HIV in India in a nationally-representative survey of deaths among 1.1 million homes. Methods Survey of 123 000 deaths at all ages from 2001 to 2003. Main outcome measures HIV mortality and infection. Results HIV accounted for 8.1% (99% CI 5.0% to 11.2%) of all deaths among adults ag...

Heterosexual transmission of HIV in India is driven by the male use of female sex workers (FSW), but few studies have examined the factors associated with using FSW. This nationally representative study examined the prevalence and correlates of FSW use among 31,040 men aged 15-49 years in India in 2006. Nationally, about 4% of men used FSW in the p...

India has long been thought to have more snakebites than any other country. However, inadequate hospital-based reporting has resulted in estimates of total annual snakebite mortality ranging widely from about 1,300 to 50,000. We calculated direct estimates of snakebite mortality from a national mortality survey. We conducted a nationally representa...

National malaria death rates are difficult to assess because reliably diagnosed malaria is likely to be cured, and deaths in the community from undiagnosed malaria could be misattributed in retrospective enquiries to other febrile causes of death, or vice-versa. We aimed to estimate plausible ranges of malaria mortality in India, the most populous...

Most households in low and middle income countries, including in India, use solid fuels (coal/coke/lignite, firewood, dung, and crop residue) for cooking and heating. Such fuels increase child mortality, chiefly from acute respiratory infection. There are, however, few direct estimates of the impact of solid fuel on child mortality in India. We com...

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To determine the rates of death and infection from HIV in India. Nationally representative survey of deaths. 1.1 million homes in India. Population 123,000 deaths at all ages from 2001 to 2003. HIV mortality and infection. HIV accounted for 8.1% (99% confidence interval 5.0% to 11.2%) of all deaths among adults aged 25-34 years. In this age group,...

Variance explained and loadings of raw malaria measures on the first principal component axis, run with various subsets of the data, SIMS_PHM_Table_S1.xls.

SIMS calculator in an MS Excel spreadsheet, SIMS calculator.xls.

Data preparation, Additional validation, Methodological Discussion, and Introduction to Principal Components Analysis. MS Word document, SIMS Appendix A_rev.doc.

Correlations among index measures and external measures of malaria morbidity and mortality. MS Excel Spreadsheet, SIMS_PHM_Table_S2.xls.

Malaria in India has been difficult to measure. Mortality and morbidity are not comprehensively reported, impeding efforts to track changes in disease burden. However, a set of blood measures has been collected regularly by the National Malaria Control Program in most districts since 1958. Here, we use principal components analysis to combine these...

The nationwide effects of smoking on mortality in India have not been assessed reliably. In a nationally representative sample of 1.1 million homes, we compared the prevalence of smoking among 33,000 deceased women and 41,000 deceased men (case subjects) with the prevalence of smoking among 35,000 living women and 43,000 living men (unmatched contr...

Major increases in HIV-1 prevalence in India have been predicted. Incident infections need to be tracked to understand the epidemic's course, especially in some southern states of India where the epidemic is more advanced. To estimate incidence, we investigated the prevalence of HIV-1 in young people attending antenatal and sexually transmitted inf...

Background: Over 75% of the annual estimated 9.5 million deaths in India occur in the home, and the large majority of these do not have a certified cause. India and other developing countries urgently need reliable quantification of the causes of death. They also need better epidemiological evidence about the relevance of physical (such as blood p...

Fewer girls than boys are born in India. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this low sex ratio. Our aim was to ascertain the contribution of prenatal sex determination and selective abortion as measured by previous birth sex. We analysed data obtained for the Special Fertility and Mortality Survey undertaken in 1998. Ever-married wome...

Supplemental Text October 14 (80 KB DOC).

Ethics Approval ICMR (132 KB JPG).

Ethics Approval PGI (117 KB JPG).

BACKGROUND: Over 75% of the annual estimated 9.5 million deaths in India occur in the home, and the large majority of these do not have a certified cause. India and other developing countries urgently need reliable quantification of the causes of death. They also need better epidemiological evidence about the relevance of physical (such as blood pr...

First, third and fifth year medical students filled in a structured questionnaire on AIDS. It was aimed at eliciting their awareness about various aspects of AIDS : Causative agent and its biology, modes of spread, factors influencing transmission and high risk groups, diagnostic methods, haematological ad immunological changes, methods for viral i...

The field entomological studies and surveys carried out in 72 tribal districts out of 100 in seven penninsular States namely, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Rajasthan indicated that in most of the areas the vector mosquitoes encountered during the present study were almost the same as recorded by the earlier...

Malaria Control efforts are existing in India since antiquity. Organised malaria control interventions were initiated in 1953 by launching of National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) which was soon converted to eradication in 1958. The initial success achieved was short-lived as malaria resurged in sixties. In 1977, Modified Plan of Operations was...

The study was carried out at the Emergency Department of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India, to ascertain the pattern of trauma in the patients. A total of 2446 trauma cases were recorded in the year 1987. Accidental falls were the commonest cause of injury, i.e 35.7%, followed by motor-vehicle coll...