Title
The harm reduction shift: A review of India's NACP strategies for PWID
Authors
Kapil Prajapat1,*, Fathima Hassan1, Lulu Sirin Chamayi2, Rislaj Hameed Koduvayalil2, Ankit Das3, Darshit Samatbhai Jinjala4 & Vedant Mukul Joshi4
Affiliation
1Department of Community & Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India; 2MBBS, Azeezia Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Kollam, Kerala, India; 3Department of General Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India; 4MBBS, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India; *Corresponding author
Kapil Prajapat - E-mail: kapil008pra@gmail.com
Fathima Hassan - E-mail:
fathihass05@gmail.com
Lulu Sirin Chamayi - E-mail: lulusirinkk@gmail.com
Rislaj Hameed Koduvayalil - E-mail: rislajhameed@gmail.com
Ankit Das - E-mail: ankit.rgsr@gmail.com
Darshit Samatbhai Jinjala - E-mail: darshitjinjala53@gmail.com
Vedant Mukul Joshi - E-mail: vedantmj1004@gmail.com
Article Type
Review
Date
Received April 1, 2026; Revised April 30, 2026; Accepted April 30, 2026, Published April 30, 2026
Abstract
India's HIV epidemic is highly concentrated among People Who Inject Drugs (PWID) and who exhibits the highest prevalence among key populations despite decades of intervention. The Review highlights a policy shift from awareness-based campaigns in NACP-I to Targeted Interventions in NACP-II, the three-tier harm-reduction model including Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) under NACP-III and differentiated care approaches, such as satellite centres and prison interventions, in NACP-IV and V. By 2023-24, programme expansion achieved 90% intervention coverage, 91.3% reported use of sterile injecting equipment and OST enrolment of over 54,000 individuals. However, HIV prevalence among PWIDs rose from 6.26% in 2016 to 9.03% in 2021. This shows indicating that service expansion has not fully translated into epidemic control.
Keywords
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), National AIDS Control Programme (NACP), People Who Inject Drugs (PWID)
Citation
Prajapat et al. Bioinformation 22(4): 2487-2490 (2026)
Edited by
P Kangueane
ISSN
0973-2063
Publisher
License
This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
