Flawed diagnosis?

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Flawed diagnosis?

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 14:36 IST

According to a new report by NACO (National AIDS Control

Organisation) there are 2.47 million people with HIV/AIDS in India in

2006, which is less than half of the estimate of 2005.

This, according to Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, reduces

the AIDS prevalence rate to 0.36 per cent from 0.9 per cent. At face

value, this is good news, but there are a lot of unanswered

questions. Where have the rest of the infected people gone? Since

they cannot be cured of AIDS, one inference is that they died; which

is frightening.

A more probable explanation is that the numbers were fudged all

along, or they have been fudged now. Both are ominous signs. If the

numbers have been doctored all along, then where are those millions

of dollars that came as aid or as government funds?

If the past figures are correct and the current one an underestimate,

there is a danger of aid flow drying up and reduction in government

spending. Surely some complacency will creep into the awareness

campaigns, making a whole new set of people vulnerable to AIDS.

But this is not the first time that any consensus is eluding those

working with AIDS. One good reason for this is that unlike most other

major diseases, AIDS is largely sex-related and in most parts of

India, still, frankness and sexuality do not go together. However

much sex surveys of small town and rural India might throw out

surprises about the average Indian's sexual ways, Indians are still

talking less about sex in public than they should, especially parents

to their children and teachers to the students.

Sex education is still clogged by moral questions and adolescent

knowledge about sexuality is still largely acquired from clandestine

sources. But the problem is not only moral. Even where surveys are

carried out carefully, the constituencies are kept limited to sex

workers, lorry drivers and antenatal clinics. What about the floating

urban population, including the migrant labourer? Moreover, the basic

AIDS test (or Eliza test) entails three tests carried out over a

period of six months for a foolproof report. This makes it tedious.

There is also international pressure for channelling money to Africa,

where things are worse.

This is not to say that nothing has worked. Awareness about the

disease and the preventive methods have increased manifold. Some NGOs

have done very credible work among sex workers and migrants. What is

needed is a coordinated effort to address the health issues so that

the disease is controlled. Second, there is a need to see that we

talk more freely about unsafe sex and its attendant health risks so

that the new generation might grow up knowing what to go for and what

to avoid.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1109139 & pageid=2