Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - December 18, 2006
Kamil Zaheer

"I just did not think about what I was doing," Srivastava, 48, told Reuters in Patna, capital of the impoverished state of Bihar in eastern India.

Srivastava is one of the millions of Biharis -- as residents of one India's poorest states are called -- who have migrated over the years to work in more prosperous and industrialised regions in India's west and south.

Monday is the United Nations' International Migrants Day and HIV is rampant in many areas of Bihar, where more than one percent of adults infected in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

Many migrants pick up the virus from prostitutes in cities like Mumbai or Bangalore and carry it home to their wives in Bihar, a crowded state of 85 million people, prompting calls for special awareness campaigns.

According to the United Nations, 5.7 million Indians are living with HIV/AIDS, the world's largest caseload.

"You can't expect all these millions to remain celibate when working outside their state," Denis Broun, India head of UNAIDS, the United Nations anti-AIDS agency, said.

"We need specific prevention campaigns aimed at migrants in Bihar and in the states where they work."

GRINDING POVERTY

Estimates of migrants from Bihar -- a state that has gained national notoriety for lawlessness, caste violence and poor infrastructure -- range from two million to ten million.

Biharis work as taxi drivers, mechanics, security guards or domestic servants in India's big cities.

Though the state is classified as low prevalance with 0.3 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS, or around 135,000 people, i said eight out of its 38 districts have reported an infection rate of over one percent.

"It is poverty that is fuelling HIV in this state," said Bihar's health minister Chandra Mohan Rai, adding that actual numbers were probably higher because of poor surveillance techniques and the stigma attached to the disease.

More than 42 percent of Biharis live under the official poverty line against an all-India figure of 26 percent.

At a recent anti-AIDS rally south of Patna, government and U.N. officials highlighted techniques to prevent infection to some 20,000 Biharis.

"Use condoms," Rai told the crowd.

Awareness posters show a man sitting next to his suitcase and waiting for a train. They read: "I know about AIDS so I will stay true when I leave home for a different place."

Srivastava regrets the day he ignored that advice. Employed by a tractor company in Bangalore and the eastern state of Orissa, he returned to Bihar after he found he was HIV-positive.

The father of four is also suffering from tuberculosis, and his wife, who is HIV-free, kicked him out of their home earlier this month after arguments about his health.

"My wife's action really hurt me," he said, sitting hunched in a dinghy room where volunteers give him medicine. "We were supposed to be life partners."

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