INDIA: A large number of Indian MPs, who represent a country with the world's largest number of Aids virus infections, are ignorant about the disease, believing it can be spread by sharing food, toilets and offices.
The lack of Aids awareness was revealed in the "person-to-person advocacy" survey of 250 MPs conducted by the Indian association of parliamentarians on population and development.
No margin of error was given, but the report's sample represents nearly a third of the 787 MPs in the lower and upper houses of India's parliament.
Sixty-four per cent of the MPs polled believed that sharing clothes could transmit the Aids virus, 56 per cent thought sharing food and utensils spread it while 40 per cent were of the view that mere physical contact with a co-worker carrying the virus was infectious.
Another 22.8 per cent believed that using the same toilet as an infected person could pass the disease on to others.
According to UNAIDS, India has some 5.7 million people infected with the Aids virus, HIV, the highest absolute number of any country.
Due to its large population of over 1.2 billion, however, India's prevalence rate of Aids-infected cases is less than 1 per cent, compared to some African states where the percentage of those carrying the virus is significantly higher in proportion to the overall population.
Not all of the survey's findings are completely negative. Seventy-six per cent of MPs knew that sex with multiple partners without protection could render participants vulnerable, while 79 per cent were aware that infected syringes could transmit the Aids virus.
While 53 per cent knew that Aids could be passed on by an infected mother to her child only 48 per cent were aware that the HIV virus also transmits through blood transfusions.