India has 2.47 million HIV cases, according to the latest figures, but health workers say the number is rising rapidly and spreading to new population groups.

"Our numbers are going up," said Loon Gangte, South Asia coordinator of the Collaborative Fund for HIV Treatment Preparedness.

"It's not confined to high risk groups, it's going into the general population. It's not a problem of sex workers, drug users or truck drivers. These people have wives and children at home and the disease is making its way into the general population."

Sujatha Rao, director-general of the government's National AIDS Control Organisation, says doctors are increasingly seeing women infected by their husbands.

In some clinics, 1 out of 100 women who come for ante-natal care checkups are HIV positive, she said.

"It is a generalised epidemic," she said. "We have pockets where the prevalence is more than 1 percent among ante-natal care mothers, so we need to intensify our work."

Out of India's 611 districts, HIV prevalence is more than 1 percent of the population in 156 districts.

"The epidemic is getting deeper into (certain) rural, general areas of the country ... it is migrant-related. They go to work and then they take back the infection to their homes," she said.

Even though HIV drugs are free, only about 155,000 people have access to retroviral drugs, up from 20,000 just two years ago.

Health expert say there are many people who do not know they are infected or who do not know that treatment is available.

Some health professionals believe India's HIV problem is closely intertwined with poverty and that the government must tackle poverty if it seeks to curb the spread of HIV.

"Many of these people are very poor, they worry about food, shelter. So they may not think their HIV status is a problem because they don't even know where their next meal is coming from," said Errol Arnette of the help group Sahara.

"A lot of AIDS patients die of TB because it's hard for hospitals to keep them (in hospital). HIV patients are just thrown in a corner because of heavy stigma."