Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Sunday, 1 December 1996,

"India has about five million HIV cases right now," said I.H. Gilada, secretary-general of the Indian Health Organization, a voluntary organization working against the spread of the virus in Bombay.

"By the turn of the century, this is likely to go up to 20 million in a best-case scenario and 50 million in a worst-case scenario" he said.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) leads to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). There is no cure for AIDS but several have been found to work against HIV.

India's commercial capital of Bombay marked World AIDS day with photo-exhibitions about the dangers of the virus, marches sponsored by charity organisations and a "Race against AIDS" organised by music channel MTV and several social groups.

Officials say the western Indian state of Maharashtra and Bombay, its capital, with a population of over 13 million, account for the majority of AIDS cases reported in the country.

The city's notorious Kamathipura red-light district houses an estimated 70,000 prostitutes in cramped and often unhygienic conditions.

"The situation is certainly grave," state health director Subhash Salunke told Reuters.

"What is particularly worrying is the number of cases reporting HIV positive," he said.

"The degree of HIV positivity among STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) cases is about 30 percent," said Salunke. "The state is treating it on a top priority basis."

Salunke said the state's fight against AIDS focussed on the youth.

"We are targeting adolescents and college youths," he said. "We feel that a proper programme of education about AIDS can save the next generation."

The state is also concentrating on counselling prostitutes and truck drivers, who constitute a major part of the visitors to Bombay's red-light areas.

The current situation is largely the result of official apathy about AIDS, said Gilada.

"There has not been enough official attention given to (the fight against) AIDS," he said. "People have sudenly woken up now that the situation looks like getting out of control."

Gilada said that by the year 2000 AIDS patients in India alone would require three times more beds than were available for all patients at present.

Yet there was some light at the end of the tunnel, he said.

"In recent months we have seen that Bombay has been bypassed by smaller cities in the number of new HIV cases being reported. It appears that a sustained programme of education and high-publicity anti-AIDS campaigns does have some impact."

While this offered hopes that the spread of the virus could be contained, it also threw up problems of a different nature.

Gilada said funding organizations often wanted to see their work attract attention in the media.

"It will be more difficult to attract sponsor funds to campaigns in rural and semi-urban areas where the scope for publicity will be less."
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