Int Conf AIDS 2004 Jul 11-16; 15:(abstract no. D10221)
Meshack D, Griffin CC Rural Education & Development Assocn., Chennai, India
The purpose of this paper is to draw international attention to the plight of an outcast community in India, known to outsiders as Vagri and Narikuruvas among themselves, a community generally regarded as Gypsies on account of their spatial mobility and traditional occupations. The paper evidences by way of Meshack's twenty years of social work experience among them, and Griffin's rapid ethnography and role as advocate, that not only is this community at risk of HIV/AIDS infection through its poverty, nomadism, and outcast status, but that this risk is multiplied because of the Gypsies special vulnerability to the sexual advances of long distance commercial transporters who do not practise safe sex. Moreover, to add to this double jeopardy, when infections occur provision of medical care is almost non-existent. The paper details how poverty conspires with other more specific social and cultural features to place this community, and other mobile communities like it, at high risk, and suggests ways in which improvements could be advanced.
Keywords: AEGIS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV, HIV Seropositivity, Gypsies, HIV Infections, Safe Sex, HIV Seroprevalence, HIV-2, HIV-1, HIV Antibodies, India, immunology
