GUWAHATI, India, Dec 1 (AFP) - Thousands of people in India's northeast pledged Sunday to prevent AIDS from spiralling out of control in a region where the disease has already assumed epidemic proportions.
Schoolchildren, health workers and rehabilitated drug addicts, holding placards and singing specially-composed songs, marched through the streets in seven northeastern states to mark World AIDS Day.
Government figures put the toll of HIV-positive Indians at four million, although unofficial estimates suggest the number is closer to five million.
India was among those Asian nations warned recently by the United Nations to take swift and decisive action to prevent AIDS from reaching epidemic proportions.
Some 100,000 HIV-positive patients live within Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, and authorities fear the disease could spread rapidly due to the region's acute drug problem.
India's northeast borders the heroin-producing "Golden Triangle" of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and has high rates of intravenous drug use -- a key cause of infection here by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which causes AIDS.
The states account for less than three percent of India's one billion-plus population but are home to more than 30 percent of the country's total intravenous drug users, according to estimates.
"AIDS has become a real threat to the northeast and unless checked, our future generations would fail to see the light of the day," Assam Health Minister Bhumidhar Barman said.
"Prevention is still the main priority and possibly requiring a great deal of commitment. We all need to wake up and put up a spirited challenge to combat the scourge," Barman told AFP.
Another challenge facing India is the social stigma AIDS patients have to endure.
"Society at large is very cruel to people living with AIDS," said Jahnabi Goswami, the first woman in Assam to publicly declare she was infected with the disease.
"I am a victim of the social stigma attached to AIDS in India. We need help and mental support more than anything else."
S.I Ahmed, the chairman of the Assam AIDS Prevention Society blamed intravenous drug use more than promiscuous sex for the "quantam increase" in the number of AIDS cases in India's northeast.
"But today drug users are passing the infection to the general population in the region through their sex partners," he said. "HIV transmission rates from mother to child are also assuming frightening proportions."
Raj Kumar Singh, a community healthcare worker in Manipur pleaded for infrastructre support and resources in addition to expert help to battle the growing presence in the region of the Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome, for which there is no known cure.
021201
AF021204
Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2002 - AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. AFP news material may not be stored in whole or in part in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. AFP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in any AFP news material or in transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages whatsoever. As a newswire service AFP does not obtain releases from subjects, individuals, groups or entities contained in its photographs, graphics or quoted in its texts. Further, that no clearance is obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2002. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2002 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
