================================================================ SAATHII Electronic Newsletter HIV NEWS FROM INDIA Source: The Times of India, Express Buzz, and Daily Nation Posted on: 12/11/2009 COMPILED BY: J. Boopalan (Chennai, India) Note: this compilation contains news items about HIV/AIDS published in the Indian media, as well as articles relevant to HIV/AIDS in India published internationally. Articles in this and previous newsletters may also be accessed at http://www.saathii.org/orc/elibrary ================================================================ 1. Aids drive shows get a good response The Times of India, November 05, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/Aids-drive-shows-get-a-good-response/articleshow/5200722.cms 2. Doc cautions against unsafe sex The Times of India, November 06, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Doc-cautions-against-unsafe-sex-/articleshow/5200512.cms 3. Three lakh HIV victims in India to be treated Express Buzz, November 06, 2009. http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=‘Three+lakh+HIV+victims+in+India+to+be+treated&artid=NeLA88oRsOU=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==&SEO= 4. Forcible HIV testing by India amounts to discrimination Daily Nation, November 06, 2009. http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/682820/-/4pl1c3/-/ 5. After health, HIV positives risk losing jobs The Times of India, November 07, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/After-health-HIV-positives-risk-losing-jobs/articleshow/5204771.cms 6. NGO for HIV positives to contest job termination The Times of India, November 08, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/NGO-for-HIV-positives-to-contest-job-termination/articleshow/5208002.cms 7. Sex before marriage a 'worrying' fact The Times of India, November 10, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Sex-before-marriage-a-worrying-fact/articleshow/5212908.cms ================================================================ 1. Aids drive shows get a good response The Times of India, November 05, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/Aids-drive-shows-get-a-good-response/articleshow/5200722.cms National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) officials can heave a sigh of relief as folk shows, organised by them to create HIV/Aids awareness in 23 spots of the district, have yielded desired results. During the shows organised between September 12 and September 24, over 5,400 people, including 1,585 women and children, shared their experiences with NACO team members. The NACO selected Allahabad city for the folk dose as the district was placed under A category as far as spread of Aids is concerned. People in Jasra block, Belamundi village, Mau Aima, Sirsa, Baraut, Handia, Mundera Mandi, Pratappur, Indrapuri Baurahana and Kydganj Dharkar Basti came forward to know about factors responsible for HIV/Aids and exchanged views with folk team members. Talking to TOI, Dr Meesum SAM, assistant district programme officer, said that the folk shows have received an overwhelming response in rural pockets, including Belamundi village, where a nine year-old boy was forced to leave school after he was detected HIV positive by school authorities. He added that as many as 320 people, including 70 males, 100 females and 150 children, had not only enjoyed the folk show, but also asked questions on Aids and HIV from team members and doctors. People in rural pockets were more interested in knowing about safe sex measures, he added. Apart from monitoring folk shows, health officials also carried out mapping of the high risk groups, including female commercial sex workers, intra-venous drug users and men-having sex with men (MSM). The folk team also interacted with 91 commercial sex workers, including 35 in Kumhrana New Jhunsi, 25 in Mundera Mandi, 20 in Indrapuri Bairahana, eight in Kydganj and three in Bairahana areas. Dr SAM said that the health department has apprised the UP State Aids Control Society officials about the response that these shows got in the district. An Aids awareness campaign is still underway in 20 blocks and urban sectors, he said. Members of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had already shown satisfaction over schemes and projects being implemented in the district for HIV+ people. ================================================================ 2. Doc cautions against unsafe sex The Times of India, November 06, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Doc-cautions-against-unsafe-sex-/articleshow/5200512.cms A large number of senior Army officials, their spouses and doctors of the Danapur Military Hospital attended a seminar organized to mark the end of a two-day Aids awareness camp at the hospital on Thursday. Delivering his key-note address, Dr Diwakar Tejaswi said Aids has become a menace in most of the countries. Of the 40 million Aids/HIV cases across the globe, about 2.5 million are in India alone. In Bihar, the number of Aids/HIV cases is around 28,000, he said. According to Dr Tejaswi, about 6000 HIV+ cases were found in Indian armed forces recently. "The need of the hour is to adopt all preventive measures to check the spread of the deadly disease in the country," he said advising people, including women, to insist on safe sex and go for regular medical examination. The military hospital doctors said about 100 jawans underwent test for HIV at the awareness camp. The Army doctors would hold seminars on a regular basis to educate new recruits about Aids menace. Danapur sub area commander Brig S K Yadav, BRC commandant Brig P S Rathi and ZRO deputy director Brig R J Sharma were among those who attended the seminar. ================================================================ 3. Three lakh HIV victims in India to be treated Express Buzz, November 06, 2009. http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=‘Three+lakh+HIV+victims+in+India+to+be+treated&artid=NeLA88oRsOU=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==&SEO= Only about 75,000 out of the one lakh people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the state are registered and are receiving the Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART). Highlighting the importance of care for PLHIV, a two-day convention on Convergence for HIV Care A National Best Practice Workshop, organised by Snehadaan, a city-based NGO working for PLHIV, was inaugurated here on Thursday. Dr Bachani, deputy director, National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) gave a clarion call for a sustainable common minimum programme for care and support for PLHIV which can be implemented across the country. “At present, 2.70 lakh PLHIV are on ART in the country. This number is expected to touch 3 lakh and we would achieve the target set for March 2012 by March 2010. Global Fund is ready to continue the support with grants for the next six years,” she said. RR Jannu, project director, Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society said, “In Karnataka, the goal is to achieve comprehensive, competent and compassionate care for all people living with HIV and their affected families. This is being done through 34 ART centres, 565 Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres (ICTC) and 36 Community Care Centres (CCC) spread across the state.” Poster exhibitions depicting success stories of care centres and ART centres, satellite skill-building workshops addressing themes such as encouraging positive speakers, prevention of infection, reduction of stigma and discrimination in health care settings are being held across the country. ================================================================ 4. Forcible HIV testing by India amounts to discrimination Daily Nation, November 06, 2009. http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/682820/-/4pl1c3/-/ By allowing people with HIV/Aids to enter the US after January 1, next year, President Obama is holding up to shame countries left behind in removing discrimination against people who are infected. The countries and there are about a dozen of them include India, which hosts thousands of African university students, many from Kenya. In a move apparently aimed at arresting the spread of the scourge, India still needs foreign students most of them African or Asian to take compulsory HIV tests. If they prove positive they are deported. The mandatory testing of foreign students there some 30,000 foreign students in India not only discriminates against them, but also violates their basic human rights. It is particularly demeaning for people from a continent widely suspected to be the origin of Aids. Government centres in India have been carrying out these tests for more than two decades now, although forced testing violates international law. ARTICLE 17 OF THE INTERNATIONAL Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article states: “No-one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy”. And the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in a report issued on Aids and human rights, says: “The right to privacy covers obligations to respect physical privacy, including the obligation to seek informed consent to HIV testing, and also privacy of information, including the need to respect confidentiality of all information relating to a person's HIV status. The report adds that the individual's interest in his privacy is particularly context of HIV/Aids, firstly, because of the invasive character a mandatory HIV test, and secondly, because of the stigma and discrimination attached to the loss of privacy and confidentiality. Testing for HIV infection should be voluntary, and conducted only if an individual gives informed consent after pre-test counselling. When it is made mandatory for a selected group of foreigners, it stigmatises. And it does not help India to fight HIV/Aids. It is futile. Testing is needed before one can get the residence permit, but the testing does not take into account the “window period. A test is cannot detect the presence of the virus during the window period, even though the person is infected and infectious. One, however, gets the feeling that India thinks that by requiring mandatory HIV screening for Africans, it is stopping the spread of HIV/Aids, that the disease comes from Africa, and that India will not become another Africa. The exercise shows unthinkable insensitivity. It is surprising that no African government has publicly put diplomatic pressure on New Delhi to stop the absurd exercise. Susan Sontags Aids and Its Metaphors shows well this accusatory side of Aids infection: how fears, paranoia and stigma are associated with the disease, as well as how it is always assumed that the disease comes from somewhere else, that it is someone else's fault. When the first Indian Aids case was diagnosed in 1986, the media and government officials attributed the disease to foreigners or returning Indians. The director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research went as far as demanding a legal ban on sex with foreigners and non-resident Indians. Foreign students were then screened and nine out of an estimated 1,200 at that time were found to be HIV-positive and deported. The government made it mandatory for all foreigners who intended to live in India for longer than a year to undergo a test. BUT DESPITE THE QUARANTINE ON HIV-positive foreigners, the spread of Aids in India continues. In 2006, UNAids estimated that there were 5.6 million people living with HIV in India, that is more than in any other country in the world. In 2007, following the first survey of HIV among the general population, UNAids and India's National Aids Control Organisation agreed on a new estimate of between 2 million and 3.1 million people living with HIV. Last year, the figure was confirmed to be 2.5 million, a prevalence of 0.3 per cent. Because of the size of India's population nearly 1 billion a prevalence of 0.3 per cent translates into large numbers of people living with Aids. Clearly, screening foreigners has had no effect on the Indian levels of infection. The sure way to prevent Aids is behaviour change, not blaming foreign students. ================================================================ 5. After health, HIV positives risk losing jobs The Times of India, November 07, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/After-health-HIV-positives-risk-losing-jobs/articleshow/5204771.cms Anshu (name changed) is HIV positive. Her world came crashing down when she had learned about acquiring the immunity-debilitating infection 10 years ago. As she mustered courage to move on in life by collecting the shattered pieces around her, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) came along to extend a helping hand with the job of an outreach worker. But today, once again, her future seems bleak as uncertainty shrouds her employment. When I was served a month's notice, I was shocked. The appointment letter had clearly stated that we would be employed for a year, said Anshu, who earns Rs 3,000 per month as an outreach worker. She isn't alone. Some 100 HIV positives, employed by NACO six months ago, are at risk of losing their source of sustenance. Under National AIDS Control Programme, Phase-3, NACO for the first time had employed people living with HIV at Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre to use their services as counsellors while making them self-reliant. However, in a recent communication from the ministry of health and family welfare to State AIDS Control Society (SACS), services of these outreach employees stand to be terminated by November-end. While SACS and some local NGOs had been the appointing authority for these workers, a private agency was now entrusted with the work of employing HIV positive people for various outreach activities. Dr Damodar Bachani, deputy director general, NACO, Delhi, said, “India has been sanctioned Rolling Continuation Channel (Switzerland-based global funding agency under public-private partnership for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria) aid for outreach activities. Though a private agency has been hired for the purpose, our endeavour will be to retain those who are already employed. As uncertainty looms over reappointments, Vanita Gupta, director, SACS, Chandigarh, said, We have received a communication from the ministry but our efforts will be to let efficient workers continue. Not taking kindly to this move, seen more as a hindrance than an aid, Rajesh Gopal, joint project director, SACS, Gujarat, noted, The purpose of this outsourcing is not known... it seems it will deny easy accessibility to the needy. ================================================================ 6. NGO for HIV positives to contest job termination The Times of India, November 08, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/NGO-for-HIV-positives-to-contest-job-termination/articleshow/5208002.cms Reacting to the move of terminating the services of HIV positive people employed as outreach workers with 72 counselling centres of State AIDS Control Society (SACS) across the country, the Network of Positive People (NPP) is in the process of filing a PIL to contest the same. Voicing resentment against National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), Pooja Thakur, president, NPP-Chandigarh, said, The organization cannot all of a sudden outsource placement to any agency without waiting for completion of the contract period of a year." The city has seven such employees who were taken up as counsellors by NACO six months ago. According to legal experts, any breach of contract can be contested for compensation. As Amar Vivek, advocate, Punjab and Haryana High Court noted, These people can legally fight the case... and none can expel them before the contract is over." While NPP and affected employees will also be writing to NACO, Thakur said, We are not interested in who takes over the agency for recruiting outreach workers. Anyone can hire but they should comply with the terms and conditions of the contract." Though Vanita Gupta, director, SACS, Chandigarh, said they would make all efforts to retain efficient workers, HIV positive Anshu (name changed) said, "I am apprehensive about any government control remaining after a private agency gets the project." ================================================================ 7. Sex before marriage a 'worrying' fact The Times of India, November 10, 2009. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Sex-before-marriage-a-worrying-fact/articleshow/5212908.cms At least 17% of men and 5% of women in Bihar are into pre-marital sex, a practice more prevalent in the countryside. That's the finding of a joint study made by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)-Mumbai, a deemed university under the Centre, and Population Council, a New Delhi-based NGO. The study, titled `Youth in India, Situation and Needs', covered unmarried young women and men as well as married women between 15 and 24 years of age and married men up to 29 years. The sample size consisted of 8,136 youths from across the state and the study focused on diverse areas, including their education and livelihood skills, attitude, knowledge, sexual behaviour, parental and social control and vulnerability to HIV/Aids. Only 2.6% of the respondents admitted use of condoms. "That's a major area of concern for unsafe sex makes the youth vulnerable to unwanted pregnancies as well as STDs (sexually-transmitted diseases), including HIV and Aids," Dr Faujdar Ram of IIPS said. The study also found 22-28% of the respondents have had more than one partner while 32% of the unmarried women were forced into sex. "These findings underline the urgency for sex education from an early age," Population Council's Dr K G Santhya said, adding Bihar has been a forward-looking state in this respect but much more needs to be done. The study also revealed early marriages in the state. "This leads to marital violence with 54% of married women respondents admitting to have experienced forced sex within marriage," the study said. Men are also married at an early age with 13% of the respondents tying the knot before they were 18. The study found 68% of the married women respondents having their first pregnancy before they were 18. "The state must take steps not only to prevent early marriages but also to postpone pregnancies," said Dr Shireen Jejeebhoy. The most alarming finding of the study is about the mental health of the youth. Around 16% of young men and 9% of young women respondents reported signs of mental health disorders. They were unhappy and depressed, the study reported and recommended that the matter should be addressed under the ongoing National Mental Health Programme. ================================================================ Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in the above articles are those of the respective newspapers, not those of SAATHII.