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HIV/AIDS in India has spread rapidly from a single case in 1986 to a staggering 5.1 million people in 2004.As the numbers mount exponentially UNAIDS has predicted that by 2010 the advancing shadow could affect more than 10 million. Widely unreported, India could, in the near future turn out to be the most devastated country on the globe.
One of the most alarming affects of AIDS in India is that most PLWHA (people living with HIV/AIDS) have families, usually the husband and wife are both infected and more often than not all or some of their children are HIV positive. Cultural norms dictate that the wife lives with the husband’s in-laws after they have married. Once the husband has died from AIDS, the remaining family washes their hands of both the wife and children, leaving them to fend for themselves. When the mother has passed away the children are left vulnerable and homeless. India now has the largest number of HIV/AIDS orphans in the world. Currently the estimate is that two million children have been orphaned due to the epidemic. Alone and labelled a new class of untouchables, children find it very difficult to function in a society that is still rife with stigma and discrimination towards HIV/AIDS.
In the spring of 2005, the Indian government’s AIDS monitoring body reported a miraculous turn around of new infections. They claim as much as a 95% percent drop in new cases. Many NGO’s who work daily with the PLWHA have criticized these numbers and maintain they are grossly inaccurate. Places like Chennai’s Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine, Asia’s largest AIDS hospital still records hundreds of new HIV cases a week. Many states still lack basic testing facilities and almost all hospitals throughout India reject HIV/AIDS cases for admittance. Some states are completely without services for these people; NGO’s from neighbouring states often travel to hand out basic medication to hundreds of isolated HIV sufferers.
India has over 500 NGO groups fighting the HIV/AIDS crisis; slowly these organizations are making a difference to tens of thousands of PLWHA. Whether or not the tide of new cases has been stemmed there remains an unbelievable amount of work to be done in the struggle to cope with millions of HIV/AIDS sufferers. According to Britain’s international development department two adults become infected with HIV every minute, every hour of every day.