Re: Orissa villagers boycott HIV positive family

[Guest guest]

Dear Moderator,

It is strange that after over 20 years of HIV in India and after

about 15 years of NACP in its various avatars, we still see such

reports.

This will be contradicted with official reports but the reality is that unless

we stop the culture of denial and embrace the culture of acceptance this will go

on. Some people in the political ambit have got it but not in the bureacracy.

And they control the works of the government. It is time we did something to

both change their outlook and their control on the HIV programme.

Sasi Kumar

E-mail: <sasiontheweb@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

This ref; Mr.Sasikumars message on " Orissa villagers boycott HIV positive

family "

There is nothing strange about " ..... after over 20 years of HIV in India and

after about 15 years of NACP in its various avatars, we still see such reports. "

If you are talking about 15 yrs of the programme and its achievement then I

would say that programme wasn't implemented the same way in all the states.

Orissa has been one of the state where a large majority of the community is

hardly aware about HIV/AIDS. When awareness increase, stigma will come down, but

still this isn't an overnight journey.

We aren't been able to crub stigma in TB and Leprosy completely then how can one

talk about achiving stigma reduction in AIDS in such a short span of time?

It is a process through which a community has to go through always and stigma

will keep on redefining itself in various forms and manners. One has to be

optimistic about things and your entire point on culture of denial and culture

of acceptance itself will have different shades with different HIV+ve

populations, which will keep on changing over the years.

Department of Anthropology,

University of Pune,

Pune-411007.

E-mail: saju_333@...