AIDS alarm in UP

The day is not far when a majority of the population in UP is affected by AIDS, warns former UP chief minister

Pradeep Kapoor Lucknow

One of the innovations that Dr S Y Quraishi managed to accomplish soon after he took over as the project director, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), was to expand the ambit of HIV/AIDS enquiry in India and look at "High Vulnerable" states in addition to the already existing "High Prevalence" ones in terms of the growth rate of the pandemic. The idea was mooted considering the "ripe conditions" that some of the states offered for the acceleration of the disease. The two states to be added in the new category were Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. In an interview to Hardnews in December 2004, Dr Quraishi said, "Poverty, poor health services, illiteracy, absence of family planning, migrant labour and cross border sex traffic from Nepal made UP and Bihar more susceptible and at greater risk." In March 2005, when Senior UP Congress leader and former chief minister Jagdambika Pal addressed the UP state assembly, he cited the very same reasons for the rapidly increasing HIV/AIDS problem in the state. Armed with startling figures and facts, he cautioned that, if left unchecked, AIDS would penetrate the state beyond control.

Normally unfazed by issues pertaining to corruption and failure to attain health targets, the UP Assembly was shocked by Pal's explosive revelation. CLP leader Pramod Tewari, too, raised the issue of HIV/AIDS in Uttar Pradesh.

Acquiescing to the sentiments of the House, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav announced that he would convene an all-party meet to address the problem of AIDS in the state.

Speaking to Hardnews, Jagdambika Pal, a veteran Congress MLA and former UPCC president warned the day was not far when a majority of the population would be affected by the disease.

Pal, who is an MLA from Basti, said the whole of eastern UP, comprising Gorakhpur, Basti, Kushinagar, Sant Kabirnagar, Siddharth Nagar was affected by AIDS, mainly spread by labourers who migrated to Mumbai in search of work, returned home only to transmit the disease to their wives.

He had claimed in the Assembly that almost all 32 districts in eastern UP had a large number of HIV positive cases and doctors in government hospitals were not registering fresh cases to ensure that the numbers did not show a sudden increase.

He said Siddharth Nagar alone had 65 HIV positive cases while Gagha village in Gorakhpur had ten.

"How alarming the situation is, is evident from the fact that in Gorakhpur alone 40-50 cases of HIV were being reported in hospitals every month and hospital authorities were returning these patients to their villages without proper medical care as a majority of hospitals were not fully equipped", Pal disclosed.

In his constituency, Basti sadar, Pal said there were hundreds of HIV patients who were not getting proper treatment. "Since Nepal is close to eastern UP, some of the people who go there to work bring the HIV from there." Pal stated.

AIDS is spreading due to poverty and illiteracy, he said, while alleging that the state AIDS Control Society had failed to create any awareness in eastern UP, especially in rural areas, which has led to an increase in the number of patients in this region, although crores of rupees were shown to have been spent for the purpose.

Welcoming Yadav's initiative to deal with the crisis, he asserted, "It is time that all political parties join hands to fight AIDS".