India's success in slashing HIV/AIDS infection rates by 50 percent in the last decade masks a high rate of infection among homosexual and transgender people, experts say.
This anomaly was highlighted last month by the country's Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in a now notorious speech at an AIDS conference that will be remembered for other reasons.
Azad went on to call homosexuality "a disease which has come from other countries" and "unnatural", in comments widely condemned by gay rights activists and AIDS workers.
At the Pahal Foundation in the northern state of Haryana, which provides free HIV tests, condoms and counselling services to gay and transgender people, project manager Maksoom Ali says he faces a constant battle against ignorance. Most gay men, fearing homophobia, are forced to hide their sexual activity, and others have no idea about the dangers of unprotected intercourse, he said.
"Many people think that men having sex with men cannot get HIV and that's one reason why (homosexual and transgender) people have a lot of unsafe sex," Ali told AFP.
The country's National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) estimates that 7.3 percent of India's homosexual population lives with HIV, compared with 0.31 percent of the total adult population.
The UN AIDS agency estimated that around a third of men who have sex with men in India fail to access services like HIV testing, sex education and free condom supplies.
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