Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date. 
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Voice of America - April 22, 2004
Joe De Capua
Washington, DC
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According to United Nations estimates, less than one percent of India’s population is infected with the AIDS virus, HIV. But the low figure is deceiving. With a population greater than one billion, that translates into about four million people who are HIV positive. UNAIDS – the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS – says “HIV will emerge as the largest cause of adult mortality this decade, together with an additional one million cases of tuberculosis.”
In August 2001, the Indian government said it would make HIV/AIDS a “topmost priority” and established a National AIDS Control Plan. Nevertheless, UNAIDS says due to the sheer size of the country, “there are many challenges to expanding high-level commitment to all states and to the grass-roots level.”
One of those speaking out about the challenges facing India is Albina du Boisrouvray, founder of the FXB Association. The group has programs caring for AIDS orphans in nearly 90 countries. It recently established a presence in all of India’s 35 states and union territories.
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| Albina du Boisrouvray of FXB Foundation |
Ms. Du Boisrouvray says while there are differences between India and sub-Saharan Africa when it comes to HIV/AIDS, there are also similarities.
She says, "India is going to follow in the steps of Africa in as much as they have this rampant epidemic that’s growing every day because there’s no prevention coming from the political will at the top of any of the states yet, and of course not at the federal. So that’s what we’re trying to mobilize, every state, every health minister of those 35 places (states) to really come out forward and say take it on a national basis with a political will to do the prevention, like Uganda. We have these examples of Uganda and Thailand in Asia, who did it 10, 15 years ago and managed to contain the epidemic."
She says one of the biggest problems in preventing infection is the unwillingness to talk about the disease - something she says is deep-rooted in Indian culture and society.
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The head of FXB says, “AIDS has taught us a lot about peoples’ real sexual behavior” in all parts of the world.
"Hey, look, there is homosexuality; there is bisexuality; there is adultery. Women have sex outside of their marriages. And it does climb from the lower caste up to the top ones because one person has sex with another," she says.
UNAIDS says another factor contributing to the spread of HIV is India’s migration patterns. The AIDS orphans activist agrees.
"There’s so much migration. There are so many people moving around in India not just for work purposes but for family purposes. People have been scattered throughout history, throughout wars, throughout ethnic problems, religious problems. And people travel, they travel. You see the trains are full, even the planes are full. The roads are full of cars, trucks and buses. The Indians move around and so the virus is moving around 35 states and union territories," she says.
Ms. Du Boisrouvray says one advantage India has over sub-Saharan Africa is its strong position in the world economy. Therefore, she says, the international community is paying much closer attention to it than it did Africa.
"Nobody bothered much about those prevalences climbing up in Africa because Africa, unfortunately, is not part of the global economy. But Russia is, India is and so is China. So when you’re going to find people dying at the level of skilled workers in those places it’s going to hit the global economy. And that’s why they’re worrying, at least in India, about what they call their high prevalence states. Because that’s where they have the skilled workers and they want to try to try to protect those people first. I think it’s very good that they do that, but they also need to do it on a total nationwide basis," she says.
She says it’s not clear at this time just how many AIDS orphans India has. But anecdotal evidence from some local clinics says their numbers are rising.
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| Francois-Xavier Bagnoud |
India is home to large pharmaceutical companies that manufacture anti-retroviral drugs, ARV’s. In fact, they are providing the inexpensive medications as part of the recent deal worked out by the Clinton Foundation. That deal provides generic drugs to developing countries. The FXB founder says efforts are underway to sell them cheaply within the country itself.
FXB stands for Francois-Xavier Bagnoud, the son of Ms. Du Boisrouvray. A helicopter rescue pilot, he died in a crash in Mali in 1986. He was 24. After his death, she sold many of her belongings to start a foundation in his name. Last November, she was awarded the Lifetime Contribution Award at the 4th International Conference on AIDS in India.
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