AIDS Cases Could Reach 30-Mill. Dr. Suniti Solomon

[Guest guest]

AIDS/HIV Cases Could Reach 30-Mill. in 2010: Activist

By MICHEL W. POTTS, Special to India-West

LONG BEACH, Calif. – One of Asia's top authorities on AIDS and HIV is

predicting that there may be as many as 30 million HIV cases in India

by the year 2010. In a dire warning last week, Dr. Suniti ,

founder of an AIDS treatment center in India, said she further

believes that nearly 90 percent of those in India affected with the

AIDS virus today are unaware they have been infected.

" But there is light at the end of the tunnel, because people are

coming in to be tested, " declared at the Second Annual Uka

Solanki Foundation Lecture held Mar. 30 at the University of

California at Long Beach here.

In 1993, after working for the Government of India for 22 years,

founded her YRG CARE testing and counseling center in her

hometown of Chennai " because I found there were lots of cultural

issues relating to HIV that were not being addressed, " she recounted.

Her center today takes care of roughly 2,000 women and 4,000 men

affected with the AIDS virus. Every day ten new patients walk through

the clinic doors and her statistics show, surprisingly, that as much

as 22 percent of homemakers contract the virus these days.

The transmission of the AIDS virus was largely blamed on the high-

risk behavior of sex workers in the earlier years, " but today, the

sex workers are so empowered they would insist that a client use a

condom, " , who with her team identified the first few AIDS

cases in Indian in 1986, said. " But a housewife, even if she knows

her husband is having an affair, cannot ask him to use a condom. She

is not empowered. "

While Indian truck drivers, who were in the early days of the AIDS

epidemic primarily responsible for spreading the disease, account for

nine percent of today's infected population, Indians from the

professional classes are now in the majority. Only three percent are

students.

According to 's statistics, 82 percent of AIDS in India is the

result of sexual transmission, while the reminder is divided among

incidences of blood transfusion (blood safety has vastly improved),

intravenous drug use, and homosexuality.

Cultural taboos regarding gay sex is a major cultural hurdle,

according to . Because Section 19 of the Indian Penal Code

penalizes homosexual activity, many gay Indian men are fearful of

coming forward to be tested or treated for the AIDS virus.

And because teenage gays are unable to discuss their

homosexuality, " they lead a bi-sexual life and believe that once they

have a wife, everything will be fine, " said. " So gay people

lead a very difficult life of sex with the wife at home and men

outside. "

Because of the increase of orphans whose parents have died of the

AIDS virus, at least three orphanages in Chennai are now in

existence. " Those orphans who are not infected are adopted, "

said. " But the ones who are infected with HIV are the ones who really

suffer. "

is the director of the Southern India Program of the Brown-

Tufts Fogarty AIDS Training and Research Project through which she

has done pioneering work in microbicide acceptability studies. In

2001 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award for her AIDS work from

the state government's Medical University.

CAPTION

" There is light at the end of the tunnel, because people are coming

in to be tested, " said Dr. Suniti , whose Chennai center

treats over 6,000 patients affected with the AIDS virus. (Michel

Potts photo)

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The full story appeared in the print edition of India-West. www.

India-West.com. Thanks to Bina Murarka, the editor of India- west

[editor@...]for sharing this article with e FORUM.