Where's AIDS in the poll talk?

April 15, 2004

LISON JOSEPH. TIMES NEWS NETWORK [THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2004 02:45:57

AM]

HYDERABAD : The National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) has pressed

the alarm on the alarming spread of the scourge in Andhra Pradesh,

yet not a single party here is even mentioning the dreaded disease in

its campaign.

As is apparent from the way they're going about their campaign,

mudslinging, character assassination and name calling is keeping them

occupied. Probably empty promises on better roads and more water make

better sense than talking about the ticking Aids time bomb.

Among its many promises, the BJP national manifesto pledges to take

up Aids awareness campaigns. But the party's state manifesto is

silent on the matter. The Congress only says it's committed to

stopping the spread of Aids. As for the TDP, it has a cryptic one-

liner in its pledge list.

Quizzed at a press conference on Tuesday on why the state BJP

manifesto had ignored an issue as important as Aids, BJP president M

Venkaiah Naidu said: " Since you've brought it to our notice, we'll

give it a thought. " But probably it's a bit late in the day with the

polls not even a week away. He said he didn't get time to study the

manifestos of each of his party's state units.

His ally Chandrababu Naidu, though, was bold enough to put up giant

condom models in front of the assembly building. But, in the

electoral joust, his campaign leaves much to be desired.

From 612 reported cases in 2001, the number of HIV positive cases in

AP have gone up to 4,369 in 2003. The reported cases are only a

fraction of the actual incidence of Aids.

In some districts, as many as four out of every hundred women

admitted to ante-natal clinics test positive for Aids. This is an

extremely high prevalence rate for a general population, especially

since these mothers can pass on the disease to their newborns.

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