Publications - Released in 2008
HIV prevalence has remained at a very low level in Bangladesh. There have been only 874 HIV and AIDS cases detected in the country, and UNAIDS estimated about 11,000 adult infections in 2005. But surveillance and other epidemiological data indicate that the situation may be changing. Trends in reported cases have been steadily increasing over the last few years, and there is now a concentrated HIV epidemic among injection drug users (IDU) in a locality in Central Bangladesh.
Seven rounds of serological surveillance since 1998 have generally found extremely low HIV levels (less than percent) in female, male, and transgender sex workers, men who have sex with men, and occupational groups of men that may be more vulnerable to HIV [4-9]. The significant increase in HIV infections among IDU was found in 2004-2005 in the sixth round of national HIV Serological Surveillance (HSS), when 4.9 percent of all the injectors surveyed in Central City-A tested positive. This trend continued in the seventh round of national serological surveillance (2005-2006) so that 7.0 percent of all the injectors surveyed tested positive.