NEW DELHI, 11 August 2003 — The number of AIDS and HIV positive patients has shown a dramatic rise in Bihar. According to a government survey, there has been an almost 10-fold increase in the number of HIV positive patients in the last two years.
Asha Devi was barely coming to terms with her husband being diagnosed with AIDS, but now she too has been diagnosed with the virus. “I am feeling weak and my body is aching,” said Asha Devi.
Asha is not alone at the specially built health center to take care of HIV patients in Patna. Daily, two to 10 new patients arrive for tests and treatment. The state government, however, says that it is not the time to panic and that the state administration is now gearing up to conduct HIV tests for ministers and MLAs as part of a special campaign in the state next month. But the reality is that while the cost of the HIV test for legislators will be borne by taxpayers, there are many in the state who are too poor to either afford the test or any medicine in the battle against the killer disease.
Meanwhile, an inquiry carried out by the state drug control administration into the functioning of the Bihar state regional blood bank has revealed serious irregularities in its functioning.
State drug controller Sangeet Kumar Sinha had ordered the inquiry in the wake of the death of a child at a private clinic of Patna last month following transfusion of blood supplied by the blood bank. Sinha said the inquiry had revealed that the blood bank had supplied untested blood to the child.
