Tracing partners becomes almost impossible when profiles vanish
HIV cases in Karnataka rose from 44,581 to 66,606 over three years, with highest increases among men aged 18-35 engaging in male-to-male contact. Anonymous dating app encounters leave health authorities unable to trace partners, as users often know only screen names or limited identifying information.
- HIV cases in Karnataka rose from 44,581 in 2023-24 to 66,606 in 2025-26
- Cases among men aged 18-25 increased from 3,732 to 6,962 before dipping to 6,283
- Male-to-male sexual contact accounts for 17% annual increase in infections
- Bengaluru recorded highest MSM HIV incidence at 3.5 new infections per 100 person-years
- PrEP can reduce HIV acquisition risk by up to 99% but remains unavailable at scale in India
Karnataka's HIV cases among young men have surged 17% annually, with dating app-arranged encounters hampering contact tracing efforts. Misconceptions about transmission and stigma further delay testing and treatment.
In the three years between 2023 and 2026, Karnataka's HIV caseload nearly doubled. The state recorded 44,581 active cases in 2023-24, climbed to 62,664 the following year, and reached 66,606 by 2025-26. The surge has been sharpest among young men—those aged 18 to 25 saw cases rise from 3,732 to a peak of 6,962 before dipping slightly to 6,283. In the 26-to-35 bracket, infections climbed from 9,351 to 14,555. The pattern is unmistakable, and the driver is equally clear: male-to-male sexual contact, particularly among younger men, now accounts for the largest share of new diagnoses. A 2024 study tracking HIV incidence across eight clinic sites in India found that Bengaluru recorded the highest infection rate among men who have sex with men at 3.5 new cases per 100 person-years. Across all sites combined, infections among this population rose 17 percent annually between 2014 and 2022.
What makes this surge especially difficult to contain is how these encounters now happen. Dating apps have become the primary venue for arranging male-to-male sexual contact, and that shift has created a public health problem that traditional contact tracing cannot solve. When two people meet through an app, they often know nothing about each other beyond a screen name or a first name—sometimes not even that. After the encounter, profiles vanish. Phone numbers disappear. The person sitting across from a health worker after testing positive cannot say who they need to notify or where that person lives. Padma Basavanthappa, the Project Director at Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society, described the scale of the problem plainly: "Last year if it was two hundred, this year it is four hundred—that is double increase." She has watched young men, some barely out of their teens, receive an HIV diagnosis and break down in her office. "When they test positive, many of them cry," she said. "It is really sad to see such young men getting infected."
Dr. Vinay N. Kaushik, a urologist and andrologist at Apollo Hospitals in Bengaluru who has treated HIV patients for years, has seen the tracing problem from the clinical side. "In the app-based dating landscape that many young men in Bengaluru navigate, encounters are often anonymous and profiles are deleted after meetings," he explained. "Sometimes a contact is just a first name, or no name at all. Tracing partners becomes almost impossible. I have had patients who genuinely cannot tell me whom they need to notify. This is a genuine public health blind spot." The anonymity that dating apps provide—which many users value for privacy and safety—has become a barrier to the very interventions that could slow transmission.
But the tracing problem is only part of the obstacle. Equally damaging are the misconceptions that persist about how HIV spreads. Many young men, Basavanthappa and Kaushik say, do not believe that HIV can be transmitted between men. The prevailing myth is that the virus spreads only through heterosexual contact. Young men who later tested positive asked their doctors: "Can it spread through men having sex with men?" This gap between reality and understanding delays diagnosis and treatment. Kaushik identified four widespread false beliefs: that HIV is inherently a "gay disease" and therefore irrelevant to men who do not identify as gay; that oral sex carries no risk; that someone can determine HIV status by appearance; and that HIV infection is inevitably fatal. None of these is true. Most people in the early weeks of infection are highly contagious but show no symptoms. The only way to know is to test. And modern antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to undetectable levels, allowing people to live long, healthy lives while preventing transmission to others—a concept known as U=U, or undetectable equals untransmittable. Yet awareness of this remains low across India.
Stigma, however, may be the deepest barrier of all. Kaushik has watched patients delay seeking care for months or years because they feared judgment from doctors, discovery by family members, or the social consequences of a positive result. Some have been afraid even to walk into a clinic. "Stigma keeps people away from testing," he said. "When people stay away from testing, they do not get treated. And when they do not get treated, they can continue to unknowingly pass the virus on to others. Fear of judgment is not just a personal tragedy; it is one of the factors that keeps this epidemic running."
To address these barriers, Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society has launched a "Know Your Status" campaign built around anonymity. A QR code directs users to a seven-question screening tool that does not ask directly about sexual identity. Based on responses, people are connected to counsellors online or through a free multilingual helpline. Testing and medication are provided at no cost. But Kaushik argues that prevention efforts must accelerate on multiple fronts: community-led testing, training for healthcare providers to reduce stigma, and factual sex education in colleges and workplaces. He has also called urgently for expansion of PrEP—pre-exposure prophylaxis, a daily tablet that can reduce the risk of HIV acquisition through sexual contact by up to 99 percent. The National AIDS Control Organisation issued guidelines in 2022 calling for PrEP distribution through government centres, but that rollout has not happened at scale. "This is an intervention that could dramatically reduce new infections, and it is being left on the table," Kaushik said. As cases continue to climb among young men in Karnataka, the gap between what is known to work and what is actually available on the ground remains a critical vulnerability.
Notable Quotes
Last year if it was two hundred, this year it is four hundred—that is double increase. When they test positive, many of them cry. It is really sad to see such young men getting infected.— Padma Basavanthappa, Project Director at Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society
Stigma keeps people away from testing. When people stay away from testing, they do not get treated. And when they do not get treated, they can continue to unknowingly pass the virus on to others. Fear of judgment is not just a personal tragedy; it is one of the factors that keeps this epidemic running.— Dr. Vinay N. Kaushik, urologist and andrologist at Apollo Hospitals, Bengaluru
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does the dating app piece matter so much here? People have always had anonymous sexual encounters.
The difference is scale and speed. Apps make it frictionless—you can meet someone across the city in an hour, and neither of you needs to know anything real about the other. When someone tests positive, a health worker cannot reconstruct who they were with. That breaks the entire contact-tracing system.
But couldn't people just... tell the truth about who they met?
In theory, yes. In practice, many genuinely do not know. A first name that might be fake, a deleted profile, no phone number. And even when they do know something, there is the stigma problem—admitting to a health worker that you met someone through a dating app, that you had anonymous sex. That shame keeps people from being honest.
So the misconceptions about transmission—do those come from lack of education, or something else?
Both. There is a real gap in sex education in India. But there is also something deeper: HIV has been framed for decades as a disease of "others"—sex workers, gay men, people in the Northeast who use drugs. Young men in Bengaluru do not see themselves in that frame, so they do not think the risk applies to them. They do not believe men can transmit it to men.
And the U=U concept—undetectable equals untransmittable. That should be huge for reducing stigma, right?
It should be, and it is globally. But almost nobody in India knows about it. If people understood that someone on treatment cannot pass the virus on, that HIV is manageable, not a death sentence—that changes everything about whether someone seeks care early. Right now, people are terrified.
What about PrEP? That seems like the obvious solution.
It is. It works. But the government issued guidelines in 2022 and never actually rolled it out at scale. So the tool exists, the evidence is there, but it is not available to the people who need it most. That is a policy failure, not a science failure.