Issues related to grappling with AIDS in India

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EDITS & COLUMNS

Grappling With AIDS: Spread awareness, remove stigma

Union health minister Sushma Swaraj confidently asserts that India

is on the verge of coming out with an AIDS vaccine. Earlier this

month, the government, after offering fiscal concessions to Indian

makers of anti-retroviral drugs, declares ARVs will be available

gratis in government-run hospitals from January 2004, in six high-

incidence states. A judicious mix of prevention and treatment

strategies, such as that adopted by India, thus bodes well for this

country's war against HIV/AIDS. What doesn't augur well, though, is

the changing profile of the epidemic as thrown up by the recently

released UNDP report on AIDS in South Asia. According to it, in

India, the disease has disturbingly spread from urban to rural

areas, and from high-risk groups (of sex workers, same-sex partners

and drug users) to the general population, which includes youth and

women (often, married and monogamous). Now, add to these worrying

trends the fact that there are currently 3.9 million infected with

HIV/AIDS, second only to South Africa. The UN thus predicts that in

the next seven years, India will have between 20-25 million people

living with HIV.

These grim numbers serve as a reminder that despite the slow

progress charted out so far, India cannot afford to be complacent on

the HIV/AIDS front. Second, they help one put the nation's

strategies in perspective. This is the truly depressing part,

because then, we come face to face with half-hearted moves as well

as policies which are often at odds with the desired outcomes.

Authorities drag their feet over the $100 million grant offered by

the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, as reported by the

media. This when rural India is a ticking time-bomb, mired as it is

in ignorance, a trait which feeds the epidemic.

In urbanised `developed' regions, screening and treatment services

on the ground — which are a weak link in HIV/AIDS care — are

scarcely provided by corporates, most of whom gladly organise high-

profile charity galas. Homosexuality and prostitution are criminal

offences when, in fact, voluntary testing and counselling, not

criminal prosecution, is the need of the hour. India is almost

rabidly squeamish about promoting condom usage, a cost-effective

preventive intervention. Our schools do not deem it fit to educate

teens about safe sex. And women's rights — particularly those

pertaining to sexuality — remain largely a pipedream in large

sections of male-dominated society. Worryingly, a multi-pronged

approach is still missing in relation to a pandemic with socio-

economic-cultural dimensions.

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