What makes the statement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria made in Paris on Tuesday that India has overtaken South Africa as the country with the highest number of HIV-AIDS patients ironical is that India has been, for some time now, a major supplier of low-cost HIV-AIDS drugs to the Third World. Yet, New Delhi has been sleepwalking through the problem just like President Thabo Mbeki did in the first years of his administration.
It was truly unedifying this week to see the authorities in New Delhi manipulating statistics to dispute the claim. The Indian government’s efforts should not be focused on its world ranking but rather on what it is going to do to improve a situation which by some accounts is already running out of control.
Both the Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments have been long on declaring campaigns to stem the spread of HIV-AIDS but short on results. Part of the problem is one of public education. Many Indians find the subject of sex and HIV-AIDS difficult and embarrassing. Drives to encourage the use of condoms have run into an understandable reticence. Some influential politicians have even gone so far as to state that they believe that the whole danger has been overblown — one called the warnings “hype”. Naturally many Indians would rather believe such people. The idea that the country could be in the grip of an HIV-AIDS epidemic, fueled in large part by the country’s sex industry, is distasteful.
Yet the basic figures are there. Given the difficulty of collecting reliable data nationwide, the total of around five million infected Indians could be a serious underestimate. One respected international AIDS charity has suggested the total could be up to 8 million people. Once an infection reaches this sort of base, the risk of a rapidly accelerating spread becomes very real. Africa has already demonstrated the debilitating economic and social effects of this tragic condition. At this pivotal moment in its economic growth, India simply cannot afford to have HIV-AIDS roar out of control.
It has the pharmaceutical manufacturing base to provide medication to help existing sufferers control the onset of the condition. Indian scientists are working hard on a vaccine against HIV, but even assuming the current accelerated testing is successful — and as with so much cutting-edge medical research, there must always be doubts — no vaccine will be available for five years. By then many millions more could have become victims.
The government is about to launch a National Council on AIDS, made up of ministers, officials and experts. If this new body has both the teeth and determination to do its job, it could lead the way in convincing all Indians of the perils they face. That education needs to start with politicians and opinion-makers who prefer to discount the hazards ahead. The new body must on no account become merely a talking shop and a way for the government to seem to be getting to grips with the challenge.
