Dark side of AIDS Campaign

March 3, 2004

Dark side of AIDS campaign

Ashok Das, Hyderabad, March 2

The anti-AIDS campaign may have helped spread awareness about the dreaded

disease, but it has created a fresh set of problems in Andhra Pradesh.

A new human tragedy is unfolding as people - going by the symptoms described in

the government advertisements - are resorting to suicide under the false

impression that they have AIDS.

Similarly, wrong tests conducted by ill-equipped or careless diagnostic labs are

leaving people scarred for life.

In the latest instance, a man killed his wife and two children and then

attempted suicide fearing he had contracted AIDS.

Madhava Rao (35), a welder in a private factory on the outskirts of Hyderabad,

was convinced he had AIDS as his symptoms matched those mentioned in an ad

carried in a local paper. He killed his wife Shanta Kumari(28), sons Ajay (3)

and Vijay (1), and then attempted suicide last Wednesday.

Of late, Rao had been suffering from recurring fever, stomach pain and eye

infections. " My symptoms were similar to what the newspaper ad described. I got

panicky, but had no money to go in for medical tests to confirm my suspicions, "

he told the police.

Rao, who is now recuperating in hospital, is a shattered man. The doctors at the

hospital, who have conducted tests on him twice since then, have certified him

HIV-negative. " Why should I live? I have lost everything, " he says.

In any case, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing his

family.

State health officials said they would have to take a re-look at the campaign.

However, they admitted that they periodically receive complaints of wrong

diagnosis. But they are helpless as the private diagnostic centres, mushrooming

all over the state, do not come under their purview.

Fatal doubts

* Feb 27, 2004 Sadu Ravi of Warangal district banished after villagers suspected

he was HIV+

* Feb 26, 2004 Madhav Rao (35) kills wife, two little children and attempts

suicide under impression he is HIV+

* Oct 29, 2003 Syed Basheer (33) deserted by family and thrown out of home after

ESI hospital wrongly diagnosed him as having AIDS

* July 4, 2003 Ponnamma (30), suspected HIV+, stoned to death in Kuppam, the

CM's constituency

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