AIDS & Punjab — III. Harnam knows the scourge

[Guest guest]

AIDS & Punjab — III. Harnam knows the scourge

Naveen S Garewal, Tribune News Service

Fatehgarh Sahib, November 22. Life has not been very kind to Harnam Kaur. She

became a widow at an young age. Raising two daughters on her own has not been

easy, especially after she was thrown out of her husband’s joint family house

along with her children. She resolved to live with dignity and bring up Sapna

(2) and Anjali (6) as she would have if her husband was alive.

But fate had something else in store for her. Three months ago, she was

persuaded by an NGO to get herself tested at a voluntary counselling and testing

centre near her village to find whether her husband - a truck driver - had

infected her before he succumbed to AIDS.

To her utter horror, Harnam found that not only she herself but even her

children were infected. The news shattered her. She is unable to share the

information with anyone else and her children are too small to understand the

implications of being HIV positive.

“The HIV test was conducted free. But to get further tests done, I will have to

pay for travel. I also have to deposit Rs 250 each for all three of us to get

registered for treatment. For me the choice is between feeding my children for a

month or two or to get the tests done. With no source of income, I give the

tests a go-by”, said Harnam (name changed).

“She is not the only one who faces this plight. Many HIV positive people are

from the lower strata of society and cannot afford to travel to the three

testing centres at Jalandhar, Amritsar and Chandigarh. We have been demanding

free travel for these people and asking the government to bear all the expenses,

including testing from the date they are tested HIV positive”, says Mr. Manmohan

of the Voluntary Health Association, Punjab,

There are countless women in Punjab who are widows of truck drivers whose entire

families have been tested HIV positive. “In many cases NGOs with fixed annual

budgets are willing to help financially deserving cases, but we cannot pay for

every HIV positive person each time he or she requires CD-4 testing”, says Mr.

Rajiv Kumar working as a counsellor for a Bathinda- based NGO.

Till a person is put on anti-retroviral treatment, an HIV positive person has to

pay Rs 250 each time he undergoes a test. Thereafter, tests and treatment become

free. There has been a growing demand for making all testing and treatment free

for everyone at the government-run ART centres as they mainly cater to the poor.

Punjab is placed in the category of “vulnerable” states. The state has already

reported a case where the entire family has died of AIDS in Tarn Taran district.

Patiala district has had a case where three siblings were orphaned due to AIDS

killing their parents.

Available data suggest that HIV affects young people (87.7 per cent) in the

15-44 age-group. Males comprise three times the number of female AIDS patients.

The National AIDS Control Organisation - the apex national body - that overseas

HIV- related issues across the country has indicated that it proposes to

reclassify certain states in terms of HIV/AIDS prevalence. It has hinted that

states like West Bengal, which have controlled AIDS, would be put in a lower

category while it plans to put Punjab in the “high-risk” category after the

results of the just concluded survey across 24 sites in Punjab are tabulated.

While the government has done precious little, nearly a hundred villages in

Punjab have made testing for HIV mandatory for the bride and the groom, if the

wedding is to be solemnised in the villages concerned. It started in Manuke and

Dhaibee villages in Ludhiana district and since then several panchayats like

that of Karimpur in Kapurthala and several others in Tarn Taran have adopted it.

http://tribuneindia.com/2006/20061123/punjab1.htm#8

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