AIDS awareness zero

Doctors in a hospital in Meerut refuse to treat a HIV positive pregnant woman, forcing her husband to deliver their child. In Pampady, Kerala, parents boycott a school for taking in five HIV positive children.

The two stories this week proved that HIV positive people are ostracized and harassed and it also proved that Indians know little about AIDS and are uncomfortable dealing with people suffering from the disease.

Does this ignorance affect all sections of the society? Or is it just a few people who are unaware about AIDS? CNN-IBN’s Bhupendra Chaubey asked this on India 360 to Nafisa Ali, chairperson and founder of the NGO Action India, Mayank Agarwal, Joint Director of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and Loon Gangte, President, Delhi Network of Positive People.

What do the incidents in Meerut and Pampady prove? Nafisa Ali said it proves NACO, which is top organisation responsible for AIDS awareness in India, has failed.

“It means that NACO has not been able to accomplish its role, because it is the duty of the government hospitals to be equipped to deal with HIV positive people. A pregnant HIV positive woman, before and after giving birth, must be given a drug that reduces the possibility of the AIDS virus being transmitted to the child. It is tragic that in India doctors are unaware of the basic procedure to be followed in case of HIV birth cases. This shows that the awareness programmes are a failure.”

“Laws (against discrimination) are in place but the understanding of the medical fraternity is really backward. It is now mandatory in government hospitals to check the HIV status of an expectant mother before delivery,” she said.

Mayank Agarwal said NACO must not be blamed for the “attitudinal problem” of people. “I do not agree with Nafisa’s statement. It is the attitudinal problem towards HIV patients that’s to be blamed. It takes time to change mindsets of the people. We have awareness programmes and incidents of stigma are decreasing. Our surveys show that misconceptions about the spread of AIDS are changing.”

Loon Gangte accepted that doctors and hospitals had given HIV positive people “some amount of support” but the prejudice is still strong. “If I look back five-six years, there has been a slight change in the medical fraternity while dealing with such cases. I remember five years back, HIV patients were shown door by all the hospitals. Today we have found some amount of support.”

Legal loophole
Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution give Indians the Right to Equality and protect them against discrimination, but there is no law to prevent discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS.

A Bill to prevent discrimination and harassment of HIV positive people is presently with the Law Ministry and is likely to be tabled in the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

The Bill proposes to ban discrimination of HIV positive people in the workplace, in educational institutions and in healthcare but it does not make discrimination a punishable offence. Instead, it suggests “soft” punishments like community service.

Can a stronger law help HIV positive patients? The panel said a law would help but awareness would be a stronger weapon to fight discrimination.

“Its not about law, but about understanding the importance of how the virus can and cannot be passed on from an infected person to a non-infected being,” said Ali.

“The solution is to have enough awareness among HIV mothers. There have been cases where, with appropriate precautions and drugs, HIV positive women have given to healthy children. The woman must get herself checked before the delivery. In the Meerut case, the woman should have undergone a caesarean and taken the drug to minimize the chances of her child getting the same infection. The fact is that government hospitals are poorly equipped and lack important drugs to handle the HIV cases.”

The Anti Retroviral Treatment against AIDS, which is supposed to be freely available in our country, is not found in most government hospitals. “It is available in only 107 centers across the country. While the number of infected people are 5.7 million.”

“NACO claims that 80 pc people in India are aware of the AIDS problem. But the ground reality is that only 20 per cent understand the complexities faced by an HIV-infected person,” said Gangte.