Kathmandu, Jan. 19 : HIV/AIDS has claimed 142 lives so far in Nepal, according to National AIDS and STD Control Centre.

The centre also reveals that presently 1,807 people, including 1,271 men and 536 women in the country have been affected by HIV virus, and the disease is in full blown stage in 455 of them.

The incidence of HIV came to light in the course of testing the blood samples of 182,180 people for HIV. 1063 of the men affected with HIV virus turned out to be clints of sex workers. Of the 536 HIV-infected women, 384 were sex workers, while 110 were house-wives.

Three of the AIDS patients were found to have contracted the killer disease through blood transfusion and 196 drug addicts were infected due to sharing of infected syringes.

The bulk of the HIV-infected men and women were in the age group of 20-29 years of age.

Nineteen children including 11 boys and 8 girls were found to have contracted the incurable disease due to prenatal transmission.

The year 2000 recorded the highest number of new HIV/AIDS infection in comparison to the past 10 years in Nepal. In the year, 1807 of the total sample tests of 182,180 were found infected with HIV while the number of HIV infection in 1990 was five in 8619 total sample tested.

Though the centre recorded a total of 1807 HIV infection in Nepal as of year 2000 the UNAIDS estimates that 33,532 people are living with HIV/AIDS in the country.

According to UNAIDS/WHO working group on global HIV/AIDS and STD surveillance, the number of HIV infection in Nepal including 32,606 adults, 10,373 women and 926 children.

The cumulative deaths due to HIV/AIDS in the country is 8,325 including 2,535 new death in 1999.

According to UNAIDS/WHO, the number of adults living with HIV/AIDS in Nepal has been steadily increasing over the past ten years. The number of HIV/AIDS infection was just above 20,000 in 1996 leading to a steady rise to near 35,000 in 1999.

The global summary of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as of December, 2000 provided by UNAIDS/WHO states that the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS is 36.1 million with 5.3 million newly infected in 2000.

1.4 million of the people living with HIV/AIDS are children below 15 years. The total number of AIDS deaths since the beginning of the epidemic is 21.8 million including 17.5 million adults, 9 million women and 4.3 million children below 15 years.