Dec 1 is World AIDS Day

Hyderabad, Dec 1 (IANS) Ignorance is bliss and this adage perhaps best suits a group of children in Andhra Pradesh who want to make it big by becoming doctors, engineers, pilots or even cricketers like "captain Dhoni". But they are all HIV positive and don't know about it.

Y. Sanju, a Class 4 student in a village of Ranga Reddy district, around 70 km from here, is one such example.

"I want to become a doctor and serve my village people. My mother died when I was seven and I don't want to see others suffering," Sanju told IANS in Telugu.

She is thin and shy but very forthcoming while answering questions about her dream and education. Wearing a colourful dress and sitting along with her friends in an NGO office, Sanju does not know about her health status.

Youngest among four siblings, she tested positive for HIV some nine months back. The disease has already claimed her mother -- and her father, an agricultural labourer, has also tested positive.

"I want to study like my friends and one day make my family proud," Sanju said.

Like Sanju, Kalyan is another optimist. At 11 years of age, he studies in Class 5 and wants to become a cricketer like India cricket captain M.S. Dhoni.

"I want to become a cricketer like captain Dhoni. He is my favourite player. I will play cricket to represent Hyderabad," said Kalyan, who has lost both his parents.

He and his brother, who is also HIV positive, are now staying with their uncle. Coming to their rescue is the Geneva-based The Global Fund, an international aid agency.

In Ranga Reddy district alone, the 'Chaha' project of The Global Fund reaches 492 children from 235 homes. In Andhra Pradesh, 8,865 children have benefited from similar care and support services.

"We are supporting these children by helping them in education. We also provide money for their nutritional needs. Our focus is to provide these tender faces an equal chance in society," said Nalin Mehta, spokesperson for The Global Fund, Geneva.

"We try to make their families self-sustaining so that these kids don't drop out of school or slip into undernourishment," Mehta added.

According to the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), India is home to at least 2.5 million HIV positive people, of which over 80,000 are children below the age of 15.

The country introduced paediatric doses of anti-retroviral drugs used to curb HIV under the government programme last year. Within a year, over 16,000 children of the below-15-years age group have received the medicine.

A student of Class 9, Dinesh is another HIV positive teenager who wants to become an engineer.

"I want to become a famous engineer and work in cities like Hyderabad and Vizag (Vishakhapatnam)," said Dinesh, whose village does not have enough infrastructure to help them lead a comfortable life.

There are others like Savita, Kumar and Laxman, who are among many HIV positive children who want to study hard and script success stories for their families and villages. 

(All the names of the children have been changed to protect their identity) 

Table HIV-AIDS bill in this session only, demand victims, experts

New Delhi, Dec 1 (IANS) Three years after a bill to protect the rights of people living with HIV-AIDS was drafted and cleared by the health ministry, it is yet to be introduced in parliament. A group of experts and victims Monday demanded that the bill be presented in the current winter session.

"It is extremely disheartening to see the HIV/AIDS bill shuttling between the health ministry and the law ministry for the last three years. We need this bill to fight discrimination," said Daisy David, a member of the Indian Network of the Positive People on the eve of the World AIDS Day, observed Tuesday. 

Pradeep Dutta, who runs a voluntary organisation for his fellow victims of the disease, said: "We face major problems in hospitals everyday. From a general health problem to hospital stay, doctors don't take care of us. We need this bill, which criminalises stigma, to be passed." 

The bill, prepared with help from several voluntary organisations like the Lawyers' Collective, was drafted first in 2006. "We came to know that the bill has been drafted for the fourth time and currently it is with the solicitor general. We demand the bill be introduced in parliament in the current session," said Raman Chawla, a member of the Lawyers Collective. 

Joe Thomas of AIDS-India, another NGO, said: "In the light of the routine rights violations faced by people living with the virus, the tabling and passing of this bill is extremely important. The government should not delay it further." 

The bill has several provisions to reduce stigma to HIV positive and AIDS patients and provide better access to treatment. There is also provision for appointment of a health ombudsman in every district of the country. There are special provisions for women and children which include measures for safety from sexual assault on these vulnerable groups. 

Art to spread AIDS awareness from World AIDS Day

New Delhi, Dec 1 (IANS) Art will spread a new message with the project "I: Art Against AIDS" - a series of discussions and exhibitions spread over a year that will promote awareness about AIDS and the implications of the disease in India.

The project, a collaboration between the Religare Arts Initiative and UNAIDS - the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS - will open with a discussion Dec 1, which is World AIDS Day.

Twenty contemporary artists, both established and new, will contribute their art works for the inaugural show followed by 980 more through out the year. The subject of the 1,000 art works will be HIV/AIDS.

The works will be displayed at Religare's Arts Gallery till Dec 11.

The list of artists include Baba Anand, Ashok Bhowmik, Rajesh Patil, Promod Gaikwad, Daina Mohapatra and Jyoti Ranjan Jena.

"We, at Religare's Arts Initiative believe that it only takes one thought, one action and one person to make a change in life. With this project, we want to show that the medium of art can make a powerful impact. Art can change people's life," Mukesh Panika, director of Religare Arts Initiative, told IANS.

The works on display mostly depict the ordeal the victims face, the social stigmas attached to the disease, its causes, prevention and how to lend an sympathetic ear - in acrylic, oil, water, colour, sculptures and video interviews of a cross-section of people ranging from artists, writers, collectors, curators and the common man on their views on AIDS/HIV and "whether art can be a vehicle of social, physical and psychological regeneration", Panika said.

The subsequent exhibitions will feature public and interactive art projects involving common people. "We aim to include one million people and 1,000 artists in our yearlong AIDS project," he added.

The panel discussion Dec 1 will begin with a special address by Oscar Fernandes, convenor of the Parliamentary Forum on HIV/AIDS on the role of art as a medium for social regeneration and AIDS awareness, Panika said.

The panellists include Charles Gilks, country co-ordinator, UNAIDS-India, Rajeev Lochan, director of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Aman Nath, entrepreneur and historian, Anjali Gopalan, director, NAZ Foundation and artist and activist Sunil Gupta.

'Paediatric HIV care should be integral to health programmes'

New Delhi, Dec 1 (IANS) Early diagnosis of HIV without regular follow ups that ensure access to health services is of little use. Keeping that in mind, paediatric HIV care and treatment need to become an integral part of infant and child survival and health programme, a Unicef report said Monday.

A day before World AIDS Day, the report said failure to follow-up on mothers and children after birth represents both avoidable child death and a massive loss of investment as children identified in need and who have been referred to services do not access them.

In this regard, the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in India is planning to roll out the early infant diagnosis by 2010 in 700 integrated counselling and testing centres (ICTC) across the country. 

"Since 2005 many lives have been saved because of interventions, such as combination prevention efforts with young people, early infant diagnosis of HIV and antiretrovirals (ARVs) for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV," the report which was released in New York said. 

In terms of results, the report said that there has been a substantial increase in access to preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. 

"In 2008, in low-and middle-income countries, 45 percent of pregnant women living with HIV received antiretroviral drugs to keep them from passing the virus to their babies. That represents an increase from 35 percent in 2007 and from just 10 percent in 2004," it said. 

India reported 10,673 women receiving ARV prophylaxis in 2008 out of an estimated 49,000 HIV positive pregnant women.