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Guwahati, Dec 1 - Thousands of people in India's northeast, where the high number of drug users has sparked fears of a worsening AIDS epidemic, pledged Saturday to step up the fight against HIV by spreading awareness about the fatal disease.
Schoolchildren, lawmakers, health workers, rehabilitated drug addicts and HIV-positive people wearing red ribbons marched through the streets in the seven northeastern states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura - to mark World AIDS Day.
'The theme this year is leadership with the slogan being 'Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise', meaning there is a need to step up the level of awareness to check the virus and the important role and responsibilities of government leaders like us in fighting HIV/AIDS,' Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
'Let us take a pledge to jointly stop the AIDS time bomb from exploding,' Sarma told IANS. India accounts for about 2.5 million HIV-positive people.
The northeastern region, home to about 40 million people, has been declared as one of the country's high-risk zones with close to 40,000 people infected with HIV.
A large number of people living with HIV in the northeast are struggling for survival with hundreds dying with no access to treatment.
'People are dying regularly and suffering a lot, unable to access anti retroviral therapy (ART) as such medicines are very expensive,' said Jahnabi Goswami, president of the Assam Network of Positive People.
Goswami, 32, is one of the few women in India fighting to raise awareness of the disease and one of an even smaller number to have publicly declared that she is HIV-positive.
The Assam government Saturday announced several programmes for people living with HIV.
'From today onwards, the Silchar Medical College is equipped to be an ART centre and that takes the total number of such facilities in the state to three,' the minister said.
'As a step forward, we have announced free transportation to those living with HIV to come from their respective areas to ART centres and this is probably the first such initiative in India,' he added.
Authorities in the northeast fear the disease may spread further because of the region's acute drug problem.
India's northeast lies on the edge of the heroin-producing 'Golden Triangle' of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and independent estimates have put the number of regular intravenous drug users in the region at up to 300,000 - a key cause of HIV infection here.
'The trend is very serious here in the northeast with intravenous drug users passing the infection to the general population in the region through their sex partners. HIV transmission rates from mother to child are also assuming frightening proportions,' a Manipur health department spokesman said.
Manipur is the worst hit by HIV/AIDS in the northeast with nearly 28,000 living with the virus.
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