AIDS Out Of Control In India

[AmardeepSingh]

Aids Out of Control In India

April 11, 2004

Read the whole story from the above link

These are bits and pieces of the story:

Solomon says roughly about 20 percent of their patients are truckers, because drivers at truck stops often frequent prostitutes – and, as 60 Minutes found when we spoke with them, many have little understanding of how the HIV virus is spread.

In fact, some truckers think bathing after being with a prostitute will do the trick, and they then go on their way making deliveries across this huge country -- delivering, among other things, the HIV virus to other prostitutes, and often to their own wives.

That's why 90 percent of Solomon's female patients are not prostitutes, but monogamous women who've contracted HIV from their husbands. These are women like Periasamy Kousalya, whose husband from an arranged marriage was a trucker. He had HIV before they got married.

“AIDS today is not a death sentence. It can be treated as a chronic illness, or a chronic disease,” says Hamied.

But can American companies accuse Hamied of making knockoff drugs for India? ...

In fact, he hasn't broken any laws, at least not in India, because the country's loose patent rules still allow pharmaceuticals to be copied.

That's brought the cost of treating someone with AIDS down from $12,000 a year to less than $300.

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Money, of course, is key to the whole AIDS dilemma, which brings us to Bill Gates. The world's richest man recently donated $200 million specifically to combat AIDS in India.

“This is the largest initiative focused on a single country we've ever done,” says Gates.

“India's very important. It's the world's largest democracy. It's doing a great job in its educational institutions and developing a lot of programmers. Microsoft, my day job, has benefited from a lot of very smart people from India.”

The issue of treatment is at the heart of the CIA's threat assessment. If patients don't take their AIDS medications every day, strains of the virus could evolve which are resistant to the drugs, and that could make the expensive triple-cocktail therapy that has saved so many lives in America obsolete.

“They take it when they have the money. And they sto

p it when they don't have it. And what is going to happen to the virus over a period of time,” says Solomon. “The HIV virus become resistant, and then it spreads back to America and all the other countries.”

Despite the CIA's warning, the U.S. government has focused almost all of its AIDS programs so far on the parts of the world where the virus is already out of control -- Africa and the Caribbean.

It has offered comparatively little money - less than 1 percent of the entire AIDS expenditure - to address the epidemic in India.

[theturbanator]

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

:umm: :D :wub:

[Guest mehtab]

All i feel like saying is

DHANN DHANN MERE GURU GOBIND SINGH SAHIB SACHHAY PATSHAH, who told Sikhs never to have illicit relations outside of marriage !!!!!

[Khalsa4ever]

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

Agree with Rochak! Its sad, because the ones who suffer are the children who get it from their mothers... :umm:

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

[JapjotSVig]

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

So true. :umm:

[DhadiMania]

guess india is payin 4 the price afta 1984.

[gupt faujaan]

guess india is payin 4 the price afta 1984.

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

lol!!!!!!!!!!! wat has aids 2 do wit 84 riots. wat u wana say kandola. plz elaborate it.

[DhadiMania]

u read bhai rama singhs book? well there the shaheed singh sez the ppl of india will pay the price 4 wot happened. ppl of india he sed. i.e. they will suffer 4 wot happened. so these ppl hu hav aids n stuff r sufferin. india has the highest rate of aids u no.

[Guest mehtab]

ppl who had nothing to do with Punjab or Sikhs at all ?????

veer dont mix 2 issues :umm:

[gupt faujaan]

u read bhai rama singhs book? well there the shaheed singh sez the ppl of india will pay the price 4 wot happened. ppl of india he sed. i.e. they will suffer 4 wot happened. so these ppl hu hav aids n stuff r sufferin. india has the highest rate of aids u no.

Waheguroo Jee Ka Khalsa!

Waheguroo Jee Kee Fateh!!

if i m nt wrong bahi rama singh jee mentioned about those people who were responsible for attack on harmindir sahib, asr. in 1984.

its nt sure tat persons those r affected by aids were da only-1's responsible for attack.

bhul chuk maaf.