Prevalence of HIV infection among the prison inmates in West Bengal

Volume : VII, Issue : VIII, August - 2018

Dr. Suman Ganguly, Dr. Dipendra Narayan Goswami, Dr. Debjit Chakraborty, Sumita Samanta, Jaydip Jana

Background Prison inmatess are at especially high risk of HIV infections as a consequence of risk factors that are in

play both before incarceration and once in prison where there are frequent opportunities for further transmission

to the other prison inmates. This is most likely due to indulgence to risk behaviour like homosexuality and injecting drug user.

Objective: To compare HIV prevalence among the prison inmates of West Bengal with HIV prevalence of general population in the state

taking HIV prevalence of the pregnant women as proxy indicators and also to compare with at risk non pregnant general individual.

Methods: HIV testing was carried out for prison inmates for randomly sampled prisons in the state of West Bengal during 2016-17 and the

positivity was compared with HIV positivity among the pregnant women (proxy indicators for HIV positivity among general population)

from the program data using odd ratios, upper and lower level of con􀃶dence intervals and P values. The positivity among the prison inmates

was also compared with positivity data for the same period for non pregnant general individuals who are considered at risk.

Results: HIV positivity for prison inmates was found to be signi􀃶cantly higher (0.62 per 100) compared to HIV positivity in general

population (0.02 per 100) in West Bengal. The difference between positivity among the general population at risk (0.79 per 100) and that of

prison inmates does not show any signi􀃶cance.

Conclusion: HIV positivity among the prison inmates is signi􀃶cantly higher than general population and comparable with at risk non

pregnant general individuals. Therefore, HIV prevention services need to be strengthened at prison level.