It was one dubious distinction India could well do without, that it was the AIDS capital of the world with 5.7 million infected persons.

And now, a new but as yet unreleased household survey, says the official United Nations estimate could be way of the mark � by almost three million, reports the New York Times.

The National Family Health Survey, carried out with US financing and under international supervision, puts the number of India's AIDS patients at between two and three million. The leader, according to this survey, is South Africa with 5.5 million cases.

India's figures have been corroborated by many sources, including epidemiologists from the United States as well the health ministry, the NYT reports.

Experts feel India's lower figures have more to do with the country's prevailing sexual mores which keeps the virus circulating within the high-risk groups like prostitutes and their clients, homosexuals and drug users. Unlike in high-risk Africa, where sexual profligacy is common, Asia still remains free of widespread sexual networks or what is called 'transactional sex'.

Unlike the traditional way estimating the prevalence of AIDS � through sampling the blood of pregnant women and of high-risk groups � the National Family Health Survey bases its findings on blood samples taken from randomly chosen households in rural and urban areas. In many countries, these figures have led to Unaids, the United Nations' AIDS programme, to scale down its estimates.

India is not the only country which has benefited from such evaluation. Kenya, where the AIDS prevalence was estimated at 15 per cent of the population, saw the numbers fall to 6.7 per cent after such a survey.

According to Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, India is currently spending $2 billion to fight the disease, has 75,000 people on free antiretroviral treatment, apart from having set up 2,000 sex education centres that also hand out condoms to sex workers and clients, and 3,600 free testing centres.

If the new figures are borne out, the country's efforts will have paid off.