Background Men who have sex with men (MSM) have been the focus of intensive HIV public health programmes in India since 2000. We present certain demographic, and HIV and syphilis trends among MSM over an eight year period (2004 to 2011) in Mumbai, India.

Methods A total of 11,205 MSM (> = 18 years) were analysed. We calculated the proportion of HIV and syphilis positivity in them. We used chi square for trend to compare the proportions and logistic regression models to estimate the association between demographics and time, and HIV positivity.

Results The overall estimated HIV prevalence was 6.7% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.2%–7.2%) and the syphilis prevalence was 3.9% (95% CI: 3.5%–4.2%). In 2004, about 10.3% of the MSM were 18 and 19 year old; this proportion had significantly increased to 17.6% (p < 0.01) in 2011. Similarly, the proportion of MSM aged 35 years and above increased significantly from 2004 to 2011 (7.5% vs 12.8%, p < 0.01). The estimated HIV prevalence in 2004 was 10.6% (95% CI: 8.4%–12.7%), this reduced to 2.8% (95% CI: 2.1% –3.5%, p < 0.01). The prevalence of syphilis in 2004 was 11.4% (95% CI: 9.1% –13.6%), this reduced to 0.4% (95% CI: 0.1%– 0.7%, p = 35 years, OR: 9.9, 95% CI: 6.7 –14.6) and syphilis reactivity (OR: 3.1, 95% CI: 2.4 –3.9).

Conclusions The HIV and syphilis prevalence declined over the eight year period. A higher proportion of younger (18/19 year old), and MSM older than 35 are accessing HIV testing services; thus we need to develop intervention programmes for them.