| AIDS
Crisis in India
The following was written after consultation meetings
with NGOs in Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi and Manipur, March 1997, including
visits to the sick and dying in rural areas and discussions with
commercial sex workers.
India is about to be hit by the world's worst AIDS
epidemic, as a country of almost a billion people. Soon there could
be more people infected there with HIV than in the whole of Africa
today, more cases perhaps by 2005 than the whole world has today.
While many industrialised nations have chosen to ignore the devastation
in Africa, the unfolding catastrophe in the Far East is already
touching many other nations. It will have an obvious and significant
effect on the world economy, threatening tiger economies and discouraging
investment, with a heavy toll on the health of the workforce.
 |
800 every night
infected in Bombay alone |
 |
46% of general
population in Bombay carry an active sexually transmitted
disease (the greatest risk factor for HIV spread) |
 |
Level of HIV infection
in Bombay among STD clinic attendees rose from 4% in 1990
to 36% in 1994 |
 |
Level of HIV currently
2.5% across the city |
 |
Similar urban
infection levels and risk factors in other developing countries
have led in almost every case to city-wide rates of 15-20%
or more of all sexually active adults |
 |
Compared to countries
like Uganda in 1988 (similar stage) there seems far less urgency
in the official response |
 |
AIDS ward in Calcutta
paid for by World Bank is padlocked because no doctors and
nurses can be found in the city to care for those with AIDS |
 |
In May a woman
and her baby testing positive for HIV were thrown out of a
government hospital |
 |
In another hospital
those with AIDS have their beds marked with a large cross |
 |
Near the Burmese
border there are reports that some drug users testing positive
have been shot |
 |
India already
has more HIV cases than any other nation |
 |
World epidemic
spreads unchecked with 1 new infection every 15 seconds -
almost entirely in the poorest nations |
ACET
International has been seeking to encourage the formation of
CANA, a new national coalition of key agencies in a major drive
targeting community prevention and community care.
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