Ripples on the brain

An article in the Chennai edition of the Hindu yesterday (October 28, 2006) talks about India’s wrong assumptions in its fight against AIDS. Since I am not able to find the link to that article, I will quote the relevant portions of the article here:

“India is making perilous mistakes in its fight against AIDS by assuming the HIV is being spread overwhelmingly by sex and especially by prostitutes, a study warns….”

“…According to India’s National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), 86 percent of HIV infections are from sexual transmission, and according to three studies that have helped underpin the country’s AIDS strategies, prostitutes account for 27% of the total…”

“…The total estimate of infections comes from hospital staff, who report routes of transmission for patients admitted with AIDS. But many personnel routinely assign cases to the category of sexual acquisition without asking if the patient may have been exposed to infection through blood, the authors say…”

“…the official tally of prostitutes in India, their number of clients and the frequency of clients’ visits are probably over estimates… Its best estimate is that prostitutes account for just 2% of HIV infections…This means India is ignoring threats from other sources, in particular re-use of unsterile instruments in hospitals, dental surgeries and tattoo parlours…”

I have previously mentioned about the effective advertisement campaign against AIDS in the past. However, I don’t have a similar opinion about the “Right Ranga” campaign that is on presently because it tries to achieve more than prevention of AIDS due to unhealthy sexual habits by trying to preach morals to the society (by advising people not to engage in casual sex at all).

While as a society (and especially in Tamil Nadu), sex outside marriage would be something that we would like to campaign against vociferously, whether we can misuse the funds allocated for fighting AIDS for this purpose is something that we need to ask ourselves. In that respect “Right Ranga” is not focussed, is a step backwards from the “Pulli Raaja” campaign and, in my opinion, will not achieve its purpose. We must remember that the funds allocated every year to fight AIDS is limited and there are infinite causes associated with AIDS for which the fund needs to be allocated - free AIDS control drugs, tax sops for AIDS drugs to make them cheaper to the patients, sponsorship of further research/studies on the diesease, creation of opportunities to improve the lives of AIDS patients, prevention of AIDS through different means (campaigns etc.) etc. Therefore, care must be taken while devising campaigns to make them as effective as possible in controlling AIDS rather than to pass on moral instructions.

The article above, though, questions the whole logic of anti-AIDS campaigns in India. Instead of being unifocal on unsafe sex, it suggests that we also need to spread awareness about the other means of tranmission of AIDS.