India has over 1 billion people but Indians do not have too many world records. Indians perform miserably in the Olympics. Well, I wonder if any Indian would feel excited to know that India has the largest number of HIV cases in the world now. This is a record that would make Indians just worried. IHT reported:
But as World AIDS Day is marked Friday and the year draws to a close, health authorities are shifting direction in an effort to curb the spread of HIV in India, where 5.7 million people are infected, giving it the world's highest number of HIV and AIDS cases.
"Our priority for the new phase of the AIDS control program has shifted to take in the rise of injecting drug users," says Sujatha Rao, director of India's National AIDS Control Organization, or NACO.
Indian government needs to take this issue very seriously. There is a lack of seriousness in India about the severity of AIDS. AIDS is going to hurt the Indian economy very badly within a few years but Indian decision makers are not paying any attention to this problem. The same thing happened for some of the African countries. At first, they did not give any importance but now, the economies of those African countries are suffering a lot from AIDS.
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Lets Help South Asia achieve Access to Medicines!
Novartis Pharmaceuticals is challenging India in patent laws, which includes important public health safeguards.
I came across Oxfam’s website and they have interesting information about the case as well as action that we can take to help South Asia to receive cheap generic medications.
I thought you might be interested:
www.oxfam.org.uk/stopaids
Posted by: Barbara | November 30, 2006 10:18 AM | Permalink to Comment