First case, first in control

ON a sultry March day in 1986, the blood samples of six sex workers arrived in the microbiology department of the General Hospital in Chenna...

ON a sultry March day in 1986, the blood samples of six sex workers arrived in the microbiology department of the General Hospital in Chennai. At that time, department head Dr Sunithi Solomon had no clue the samples were the first the nation would see of AIDS.

Twenty-eight years later, Tamil Nadu is still making news on the AIDS scene, but on a more positive note. If the HIV-prevalence rate in the country has plateaued, Tamil Nadu is a major factor. 8216;8216;We caught up with the disease early, while the rest of country refused to open their eyes to the pandemic,8217;8217; says Dr Solomon, who now runs the YRG Research and Care Foundation, providing counselling and care for hundreds of AIDS patients from across the country.

The first state to set up a government body 8212; the Tamil Nadu AIDS Society 8212; exclusively for disease control and management, Tamil Nadu has emerged as the model state in spreading AIDS awareness, with about 98 per cent of its population 8216;8216;aware of what AIDS is and how to prevent it8217;8217;. The credit, say those in the know, goes to the 8216;8216;government-NGO synergy8217;8217;.

Immediately after the first HIV case from Tamil Nadu was announced in Parliament, NGOs working in the health sector turned their focus to AIDS and a number of medical professionals launched their 8216;AIDS NGOs8217;. As a result, Tamil Nadu today has the largest number of NGOs active in the AIDS arena, with the National AIDS Control Organisation funding as many as 514 NGOs in the state.

8216;8216;The initial years of creating awareness were tough,8217;8217; acknowledges Dr Solomon, who has played a significant part in the AIDS control movement. 8216;8216;When we first went to a leading Chennai school for sex education classes, the management told us, 8216;Our children are angels, they don8217;t need it8217;.8217;8217;

Though the mood is upbeat, Dr Solomon insists that Tamil Nadu too has a long way to go. 8216;Unless HIV incidence comes down, we cannot claim success,8217;
she says

However, after the session was held, the girls8217; questions shook up school managements, NGOs and the government. 8216;8216;They wanted to know if a particular type of oral sex would cause AIDS. Their knowledge of sex was really surprising,8217;8217; says Dr Solomon. Now Tamil Nadu has evolved a uniform model for sex education for schools across the State.

One of key contributions to the battle, though, came from the HIV-positive, who came out in the open, networked amongst themselves and spread awareness among the general public.

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Consider Kausalya, a HIV-positive widow who heads the Positive Women8217;s Network. Married off to a truck-driver cousin soon after school, she lost her husband to AIDS. Just before he died, he passed on the virus to her. With the support of her family and friends, Kausalya travelled to Chennai eight years ago from her native town of Namakkal and began networking with other HIV-positive women.

8216;8216;We did not worry about the stigma. Many HIV-positive men and women went public on the issue and educated the people,8217; says Kausalya, whose heart-rending appeal for support and care for the AIDS victims at a conference in Delhi moved former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee into allocating funds for the care of HIV-positive patients.

For all the positive signs, though, AIDS workers insist that Tamil Nadu too has a long way to travel. 8216;8216;Unless HIV incidence new cases comes down, we cannot claim to have achieved success,8217;8217; signs off Dr Solomon.