Goa: Compulsory AIDS vaccination mooted

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Compulsory AIDS vaccination for couples mooted

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2002 11:31:03 PM ]

PANAJI: Intervening a debate during the question hour in the Goa

assembly on Thursday, Speaker Pratapsingh Rane suggested to the

government to examine a proposal to see if it could make it mandatory

for all couples who are getting married to go in for anti-AIDS

vaccination.

The question originally tabled by Fernandes on HIV

seropositive patients drew the attention of the whole House when

Health Minister Dr Suresh Amonkar told them that between 1998 and

2001, the Goa Medical College Hospital at Bambolim detected 2,960

positive HIV cases while the number of AIDS cases stood at 90.

Rane held the view that couples earlier used to get vaccinated for

cholera before marriage. Since AIDS was causing tension in society,

why was the state government not asking couples to go in for a

mandatory check for AIDS before the marriage is registered, he

questioned.

Former Chief Minister Churchil Alemao expressed concern over the

rising number of cases in Salcete taluk covering his Benaulim

constituency in south Goa while Cong MLA Mauvin Godinho said, several

cases die a silent death for fear of getting exposed before the

society or they all choose to go out of the state for medical

treatment.

Replying to a supplementary tabled by the mover of the question

Fernandes, the Health Minister told the House, he would ask the

Finance Minister to consider a suggestion to scrap sales and octroi

tax imposed on medicines brought in Goa for curing this disease.

Fernandes argued that medicines prescribed for AIDS were very costly

and not all lower income group people could afford to buy them.

When the government pointed out that there were 48 AIDS cases

detected in 2001 alone, a couple of Legislators suggested that the

administration should be more vigilant and aggresive in case of

commercial sex workers in the suburbs of Vasco town.

When the opposition leader remarked that there was a decline in AIDS

cases during the tenure of former Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane

(now Speaker), Rane observed that it was true but one MLA from that

area lost his seat then.

When it was revealed that in Satari and Canacona, covered under the

Western Ghats as well, Goa had detected five and nine cases in 2001,

the House was shocked.

Apart from the Goa government, the health minister said, non-

governmental organisations were working towards prevention and

control of HIV/AIDS. The government, he said, had strengthened STD

clinics

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