AIDS epidemic hits Churachandpur

[Guest guest]

AIDS epidemic hits Churachandpur

Ajai Shukla

Sunday, August 28, 2005 (Churachandpur): If AIDS has a Ground Zero

in India, it is the District Hospital in Churachandpur in Manipur.

Between August – October 2002, every pregnant woman who reported in

the hospital was tested for HIV, and 32 of the 400 women turned out

to be positive.

That amounts to 8 per cent of the lowest risk group of people,

higher than the 5 per cent limit set by the United Nations for

terming the situation an epidemic.

Fresh picture: Three years later, a sentinel survey is being

conducted at the hospital, screening the same patient profile at the

same time of the year.

By the end of October this year, the HIV figures from the seemingly

healthy young women will tell an important story.

With HIV rates already higher than 50 per cent amongst high risk

groups like drug users, we will soon get a clear picture of whether

the fight against AIDS is being lost because of a new epidemic in

the heart of the family.

" Pregnant women are a low-risk group. We don't have any parameter to

test the population as a whole, so we are taking blood samples of

pregnant women as a parameter for measuring the HIV transmission in

the general population, " said Dr Vumchinpau Tonsing, District AIDS

Officer.

Hapless victims: As far as high-risk groups like drug users are

concerned, the AIDS epidemic has already hit Churachandpur.

Now women are dying as well, for no fault of theirs.

Hatpi's husband never told her that he was HIV positive. Now that he

is dead, the household, with three children, is deep in debts

incurred to pay for his treatment.

What's worse, Hatpi too has tested positive for AIDS, and doctors

say she doesn't have long to live.

" When we first got to know of HIV/AIDS in Churachandpur, the stigma

and discrimination was so high that HIV positive people got married

just to hide their HIV status, " said Esther Gangte, a social worker

in Churachandpur.

" That is how so many women are getting the infection from their

husbands. They got married without knowing that their husband was

HIV positive, " she added.

Innovative efforts: The danger still lurks everywhere, including a

town near the Myanmar border where drug traffickers fall victim to

their own deadly cargo.

NGOs like SHALOM run community education programmes to take HIV out

of the closet, so that the HIV positive men don't marry and pass on

the virus to their wives.

The organisatoins also conduct needle exchange programmes to end the

sharing of injection needles. However, the numbers are just too

large to handle.

" In the small town with a population of about 60,000, there are 4000-

5000 drug users. Of these, about 2500 are intravenous drug users, "

said Upendra Singh, Program Manager, SHALOM.

" IV drug use is one of the main sources of HIV transmission in this

place, " he added.

Important lesson: In homes like Hatpi's, the desperation spawns hope

even in the midst of death. Her son Sosawl says the sheer scale of

the AIDS disaster holds a lesson for youngsters like him.

" What has happened has happened. It pains me, but we cannot do

anything about it. But I will take all precautions not to get

involved in drugs or get HIV, " Sosawl said.

As these personal tragedies play out in so many homes in Manipur,

the people are beyond the reach of the surveys and education

programmes that the government confines itself to.

With no money and little hope, all Hatpi needs are anti-retroviral

drugs to push back the end. But neither Imphal nor New Delhi are

supplying them.

Everybody in Churachandpur is doing what they can to combat what

they say is nothing less than an epidemic.

But what everyone is hoping for, and expecting from New Delhi, is

free drugs that will improve the life expectancy of people who have

contracted the dreaded disease.

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