The Hindu : Let us fight the stigma, says Vajpayee

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Sunday, Jul 27, 2003

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Let us fight the stigma, says Vajpayee

By Our Special Correspondent

Photo: V. Sudershan

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sonia Gandhi, lighting the lamp as the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, watches during the inaugural session of the National Convention of Elected Representatives on HIV/AIDS, at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on Saturday.

NEW DELHI JULY 26. Setting aside political differences, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi, today shared a common platform to launch a nationwide effort led by the political leadership to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

He was inaugurating the first-ever national convention of the elected representatives on HIV/ AIDS. The two-day meet has been organised by the recently formed Parliamentarians Forum on HIV/ AIDS in collaboration with the Union Health Ministry and UNAIDS.

Describing the epidemic as "daunting", Mr. Vajpayee said the challenge could be, however, met easily if there was more openness in the community and the youth were empowered through education with the knowledge to protect themselves and the community against the disease.

All the countries that had succeeded in reversing the trend of the epidemic had been open about the epidemic. Likewise, the experience of AIDS control in other countries had shown that education was crucial to the success of the struggle against the epidemic.

The Prime Minister, in particular, called upon the elected representatives at various levels to lead HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns and emphasised the need to remove the stigma attached to the disease to ensure that there was no prejudice towards those affected by the disease.

Ms. Gandhi, who delivered the keynote address, called for efforts to provide AIDS education to adolescent girls, both school-going and those out of school and for measures to include drug therapy as part of the national AIDS control programme.

"I find it paradoxical that while Indian companies are world leaders in the manufacture of anti-AIDS drugs and supply such drugs to many other countries, India does not have drug therapy as part of her AIDS control programme. We are the only major country to have this dubious distinction. Should we not be making a beginning," she asked.

Ms. Gandhi also called for efforts to ensure that the official estimates of HIV/AIDS carried a greater conviction and credibility. "While we all accept the official estimate of 4 million for the number of HIV infections, we must acknowledge that doubts have been expressed both in India and abroad on whether we are underplaying the gravity of the epidemic".

The fight against AIDS should not be at the cost of traditional public health concerns like tuberculosis and malaria, she said and called for the expansion of the coverage of health insurance, considering that now, over three-fourths of spending on health in the country was by individuals.

Pointing out that expansion of health insurance coverage was one of the conditions on which she had extended the support of the Congress to the liberalisation of insurance industry four years ago, she expressed dismay that the progress on the issue had been very slow.

The Lok Sabha Speaker, Manohar Joshi, presiding over the meet, said he would soon take up with the committee on MP's Local Area Development Fund the issue of allocating part of resources for putting up infrastructure for the treatment and care of HIV patients. He would not mind allowing a long discussion on HIV/AIDS in Lok Sabha if MPs so desired.

The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, emphasised that though spreading of the message of "safe sex" was necessary, it was not enough. Conveying the message alone would not go down well in India's socio-cultural milieu. It had to be part of a larger message about leading a responsible personal and family life. "We must not forget that HIV/AIDS is essentially a lifestyle. It is a reaction to a certain lifestyle that both nature and culture are reminding us to be unsound, unhealthy and highly risky. This lesson must be heeded".

The Union Health Minister, Sushma Swaraj, and the UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot, emphasised the need for special efforts to address the problem of stigma and discrimination faced by HIV patients.

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