Maldives wary of Indian labourers with TB, HIV/AIDS: Health minister

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Maldives wary of Indian labourers with TB, HIV/AIDS: Health minister

Sep 12th, 2008 | By Sindh Today | Category: India

New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) The tiny island nation of Maldives is now

wary of Indian labourers who could spread tuberculosis (TB) and the

dreaded HIV/AIDS among its people.

`There are around 70,000 labourers in our country and the majority of

them are from India. The problem is some of them coming to our

country are infected with HIV/AIDS and TB,' Maldives Deputy Minister

of Health Abdul Azeez Yoosuf told IANS in an interview here.

`In the last couple of years we have detected 90 cases of HIV/AIDS

among these labourers and a few hundreds with drug resistant TB. We

did not permit them to work in our country, as there is always a

chance of their infecting our small population,' said Yoosuf.

The health minister was in New Delhi to participate in the 61st

meeting of the WHO Regional Committee for Southeast Asia.

The Maldives, which has a population of just 300,000, has a huge

Indian presence. `We do screening of people but there is always a

chance of others getting infected,' Yoosuf said.

India contributes semi-skilled as well as skilled workforce to the

the Maldives. Sixty percent of its doctors are Indians and nearly 70

percent of the country's nursing staff is from India.

The minister said the Maldives lacks in skilled human resources and

so could not stop the flow of workers from other countries.

Talking about the nation's health indices, Yoosuf said it was set to

achieve all the millennium development goals set by the United

Nations before the 2015 deadline.

`Unlike India, we spend seven percent of our GDP on health. The

government sponsors at least 80 percent of health expenditure of our

countrymen. The per capita health expenditure of the country is $300.

`The maternal mortality ratio is 65 per 100,000 live births and the

infant mortality ratio is 12 per 1,000 live births. We eradicated

polio in 1981 and malaria in 1982. We have just 13 HIV/AIDS

patients,' the minister said.

In contrast, India is home to 2.5 million HIV/AIDS patients and

320,000 people (20,000 more than the population of the Maldives) die

of TB every year in India. Mosquito borne diseases like malaria,

dengue and chikungunya kill over 2,000 Indians and it's among the top

three countries in polio prevalence.

The government spends one percent of GDP on health, and nearly 83

percent of health expenditure by people are from their own pockets.

The per capita health expenditure is less than $10 in India for a

year.

The infant mortality ratio is 57 and maternal mortality is 301 in

India. In Uttar Pradesh, which has one of the worst maternal

mortality ratios, at least 517 women of every 100,000 die during

pregnancy.

While in the Maldives there is a doctor for every 500-550 people, in

India the ratio is 1: 16,000.

`Practically, we know India is a big country and a global power. It

has a huge population. But to improve its health indicators, it must

invest more in the sector. It must give due priority to health, which

at this point it does not look like doing,' Yoosuf said.

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