NEW DELHI, 27 May 2005 — India conceded yesterday data showing a dramatic fall in the growth of HIV/AIDS infections in the country with the world’s second largest number of cases could be misleading.

“Our numbers may not be exactly accurate,” Science Minister Kapil Sibal told an AIDS conference, adding poor health care and rampant disease meant many victims die of other causes first. “We cannot afford to be laid back.”

Former US President Bill Clinton, here on his way to meet victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami, told the conference more training was also urgently needed for India’s doctors and health care workers.

“Every day you delay, someone will die who should not die,” he said. “We can’t responsibly put medicines out there without ensuring they are given properly.”

Praising India for the decline in the number of new HIV cases, Clinton said that country is moving on the “right track.”

“You will move from being the world’s No. 1 worry to being the No. 1 model if you follow through the plans you have,” Clinton said.

During his address, Clinton also praised the Indian pharmaceutical industry, which has been a leader in manufacturing low-cost generic drugs that help the poor and people in the developing world have access to the drugs that fight AIDS and HIV.

Clinton’s and Sibal’s statements came following a report in which India said another 28,000 HIV/AIDS cases were reported in 2004 compared with an increase of 520,000 in 2003, a 400 percent slowdown in the growth of new infections.

“They must be joking,” said an incredulous Nafisa Ali a former Miss India and now a leading campaigner with the Action India Trust, a private group spreading AIDS awareness.

“I just can’t agree that the rate of growth of new infections has fallen so sharply. Many rural people don’t even have access to basic health services.”

The government’s National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) defended the accuracy of its figures, which it said had been vetted by the World Health Organization and UNAIDS.

“Initially, even we were skeptical ... but eventually we too were satisfied that these figures are reliable,” NACO chief doctor S.Y Quraishi told the conference in New Delhi.

But Khan said NACO’s data did not include information from private blood banks, private laboratories and voluntary groups. The Clinton Foundation tied up with NACO yesterday to help train 150,000 private sector doctors.

Visiting India as UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Relief, Clinton held discussions yesterday with Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil on means to improve and hasten rehabilitation efforts.

Appreciating the efforts put in by India in the aftermath of the tsunami-tragedy, Clinton told reporters: “What we were able to talk about here is what we can do to do a better job (on rehabilitation) more quickly.”