InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, June 10, 1998
Sudhamahi Regunathan

While one man was lynched, another escaped with his life following the timely intervention by the police. The third incident was the most grotesque: a 12 year old girl was set upon and severely beaten, when she was found roaming alone late at night.

The police quickly stepped in after that to restore calm, assuring people that security had been stepped up and they had nothing to fear anymore, though rumours continued to circulate of how the gang had moved to New Delhi.

Dr. Sunithi Solomon, who has tirelessly campaigned to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, says fear of HIV/AIDS may never go away. "The stigma attached to the disease is so great that many people live in fear. Little provocations are enough for the fear bubble to burst and cause panic," she observes.

According to her, 21 people came to her clinic to test for HIV in March when the city was agog with stories of the HIV- threatening gang from "north" India. "All those who came to us showed where they had been pricked. Some said they had been pricked in a crowded bus, others said somebody had bumped into them while they were walking on the street ...," she said.

She sees only one explanation: the "primary reason for all the commotion is fear". In fact, she believes that "many of those who came to us were not really pricked but used this as an opportunity to get themselves tested."

Despite the efforts of independent doctors, non-governmental organisations and the government machinery to fight the spread of the deadly disease with awareness of safe sex practices and precautions, myths flourish.

City papers reported in each case that frightened citizens took the law into their hands because of the fear of HIV/AIDS. But in the panic, there was little recognition of the fact that the virus neither survives in clotted blood, nor in an empty syringe because of atmospheric pressure.

"Our information dissemination has been so inadequate that such incidents take place," laments Dr. Solomon, who is director of the Aids Research and Education centre called YRGCARE.

She thinks the rumours can be stopped only when people stop discriminating against those with HIV/AIDS. That too remains unresolved in India.

Last March, at a celebrity fund raiser for an AIDS NGO attended among others by Hollywood actor Richard Gere, Vinod Khanna, an Indian film actor-turned-member of Parliament for the right-wing Hindu ruling party, suggested publicly that HIV testing should be mandatory and those testing positive should be made to wear badges.

Of course, that suggestion was not acceptable to the audience, with Gere himself raising objections, but that it was made at all in front of an informed audience, reveals a level of insensitivity.

So deep-seated is the fear of HIV/AIDS, with those who test positive in most cases being isolated, that fewer people test than should.

Dr. Solomon quotes many instances when people come to her clinic after living in fear for almost 10 years. "They are sure they have got the virus and are not even willing to go through with the tests. Some of them are very well educated too."

According to her, "many young newly married women are infected with the virus by their errant husbands and the poor girls have nowhere to go. The frustration of being thrown out of society makes youngsters walk around with placards that say 'Join the AIDS club'."

Most private hospitals refuse to admit patients with HIV, and though government hospitals cannot refuse admission, the treatment leaves much to be desired. Non-governmental organisations are trying to break down the social barriers to accepting HIV/AIDS infected, but progress is at a snail's pace. Fear of being infected with an illness that is spread by sexual practices and infected blood, goes beyond public reason.

Take Kanniamma, a middle aged woman who has a flower shop in Poonamallee, believed to be India's largest flower bazar. For 30 years, she had opened her shop early in the morning, before the sun wilted the flowers.

During the weeks when rumours swept the city about attacks on single women by HIV-infected stalkers, she opened her shop well after nine, even though it was disastrous for business. "Yes, I have never done in all these years," she said, "but I had never faced such a threat before either."

The gang, she claimed, stalked people in twilight hours. "They were waiting to rape or inject a woman with the HIV virus," she insisted. Though the rumours have died down, the fear that it could happen again has stayed in a city where people refuse to trust the police and faith in the government machinery is low. (End/IPS/sr/an/98)

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