PATNA, Jan. 28 -- The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has advanced India's target to eliminate HIV/AIDS, setting December 2026 as the new deadline, officials said here on Tuesday. "The earlier target of eliminating HIV/AIDS by 2030 has now been advanced to December 2026, with an additional year earmarked for cross-verification of field data across the country," said Sumit Kumar, project director of the Bihar State AIDS Control Society (BSACS). Although NACO is yet to make a formal public announcement, the decision was taken at a meeting of project directors of state and Union territory AIDS control societies held in New Delhi on January 21. The meeting was convened by the additional secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, who is also the director general of NACO. NACO has also revised its treatment and prevention benchmark from the earlier 95-95-95 to a more ambitious 95-95-99 target. This means testing 95% of people at risk of HIV - including pregnant women and high-risk groups such as truckers, people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, sex workers, prisoners and transgender persons and other vulnerable population - ensuring that 95% of those diagnosed with HIV are registered at anti-retroviral therapy (ART) centres and testing of their viral load, and achieving viral suppression in 99% of those on ART so that transmission is effectively prevented. In Bihar, the estimated population of people living with HIV (PLHIV) stands at around 1.54 lakh. Of these, nearly 98,000 are currently active on ART, while about 6,000 have been classified as lost to follow-up, largely due to migration outside the state for work. "The loss-to-follow-up figure in Bihar is relatively low, but tracking these individuals and linking them to ART centres in the locations where they have migrated remains a major challenge," Kumar said. Patna, Begusarai, Samastipur, Muzaffarpur and Gopalganj are among the 13 districts identified as having high HIV prevalence in the state. Seven districts fall in the moderate category, while the remaining 18 are classified as low-prevalence districts, said officials....