142 & Counting

SLOWLY but surely, AIDS is a growing menace in Nepal. Gone are the days when mention of HIV/AIDS evoked only a mild curiosity about the disease that many thought was too foreign to this Asian country. AIDS was seen as a western disease. In recent years, with exponential growth of AIDS cases across the border, the disease has quite clearly come to stay in Nepal too. A yearly review seminar the other day heard that AIDS had claimed 142 Nepalese so far and the sad counting can only go on. Some 458 other HIV positive Nepalese are fighting what is often the long battle against the killer disease. According to statistics with the National Venereal Diseases and the AIDS Control Centre, there are some 1714- HIV infected persons in Nepal. All these figures notwithstanding, the actual-prevalence of AIDS danger is anybody’s guess. Especially in a society where admission of carrying HIV could easily mean self-inflicting an unbearable stigma, it is easy to picture many more people living with AIDS away from the public eyes. What the statistics actually tell is the mere number of people who were, upon their blood tests at hospitals and other medical facilities, found that they were carriers of the deadly disease. The figures do not take into account many more who would be wasting away far from the statistical certitude.

How to rein in the AIDS hazard which is very real? A host factors feed into making AIDS a swelling fact in Nepal’s health scene. Illiteracy, ignorance, lack of AIDS and sex education, poverty, migration, urbanisation, trafficking in girls, prostitution and taking intravenous drugs—all contribute to AIDS spread. The problem needs to be addressed on all the above counts through integrating AIDS concerns in different health and education programmes. Lack of awareness in the killer disease is certainly a major concern. It is common to see many youths, even those pursuing higher education, not quite in the know about the deadlines of AIDS. This poses a big challenge to the anti-AIDS health workers and campaigners. Then there is the issue like AIDS coming to the country along with the girls returned from the brothels across the border after they have contracted the incurable disease. While the first factor needs to be addressed by all related health programmes across the board, educational institutions and media, the solution to the second problem lies in proper rehabilitation of these unfortunate girls and not letting them fend for themselves once they are rescued from Indian brothels. In conclusion, it is high time that a multi-pronged strategy was devised to tackle the AIDS menace before the killer disease got out of hand.

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