Shed inhibitions, start talking about safe sex: PM’s mantra on combating AIDS

New Delhi – On the occasion of World AIDS Day, December 1, Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh has urged the people of the world’s second most populous nation to shed their inhibitions and start talking openly about safe sex to protect itself against the AIDS epidemic.

“It is vital that we educate young men and women about how to lead a healthy and safe sexual life,” Dr. Singh said. “This is particularly important given our traditional inhibitions about discussing such matters within our families and among our colleagues, quite apart from doing so in public.”

“This has to change if we are to succeed in creating awareness of the hazards of unsafe sexual practices,” he observed.

In India, many people, particularly in rural areas, have strong conservative views about sexual practices and shun public discussion on safe sex.

However, if India is to tackle the looming problem, the people of the nation must loosen up and deal with the disease prudently.

“You should fully comprehend the need to educate young men and women about the modes of transmission,” Dr. Singh continued.

The Indian Prime Minister also noted that enough was not being done to provide anti–retroviral (ARV) treatment to HIV–positive people. He also expressed his concerns about the prohibitive price of ARV drugs that has kept many AIDS inflicted patients at bay.

According to official statistics, only 15,000 people received the drug by mid–2004, a figure far short of the target of providing anti–retroviral drugs to 100,000 people.

“This is not enough. Prices must come down further to make these drugs more affordable and accessible to all,” Dr. Singh urged.

The government’s goal is to ensure that in the next two years, India’s health delivery system will be restructured to provide a comprehensive package of services to the community and to the HIV infected persons, the prime minister said.

“Our AIDS programme needs to get out of the narrow confines of the health department. It must become an integral part of all government departments. National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) should be made an integral part of the National Rural Health Mission,” he said.

“Like all epidemics, AIDS does not discriminate among its victims but the young are often the highest risk segment,” Dr. Singh noted.

“We must focus on this threat for our own future and survival,” he concluded.

The World Bank, in its latest report, has claimed that HIV/AIDS could become the single biggest cause of death in India unless prevention and treatment was improved and made cheaper.

According to conservative estimates, in India there are about 5.13 million people affected by HIV/AIDS. Globally, India is second only to South Africa in terms of the overall number of people living with the dreaded disease. However, non–government organizations (NGOs) and UNAIDS, the U.N.'s anti–AIDS agency, claim that the figure is too low as many cases go unreported.