HIV/AIDS crept into India when the country

HIV/AIDS crept into India when the country to some extent was unaware of its existence। As soon as the news appeared in the media there was a great hue and cry and people accused that yet another ‘Western’ disease had struck India. The advent of HIV/AIDS in a way served to rip off the mask of a ‘tradition bound’ society that held sex education taboo and the rude shock forced the government and the people to take one hard look at themselves like never before.
Medindia met Dr. Suniti Solomon, Founder-Director of the Y.R. Gaitonde Center for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE), a premier HIV/AIDS care and support centre in Chennai and heard her insight on tackling this serious pandemic that almost destroys a person more emotionally than physically, given the social stigma attached to it. Dr. Suniti Solomon and her colleagues documented the first evidence of the HIV infection in India in 1986. She is the Indian Principal Investigator of several pioneering HIV research studies and has published extensively on HIV epidemiology, prevention, care and support, biomedical research, research ethics and gender issues. She has deep interest in community education and mobilization and leads an effort that supports a Phase I HIV vaccine trial at Chennai with community education and volunteer enrollment.

Q. You sensitized the Indian public to the HIV/AIDS emergency in a very effective manner; tell us the trigger that set you on this pioneering discovery of the presence of HIV/AIDS in India?

A. In 1986, I was a Professor of Microbiology in Madras Medical College and Government General Hospital when 2 post graduate students wanted me to suggest a suitable research topic for them. Since news on HIV/AIDS was just then trickling in from the USA, I told them it would be interesting to study its possible prevalence in India, beginning with their current location, Chennai. The students were truly horrified saying, “We’ll surely fail in our exams,” and besides, where do we find a ‘gay’ community in Chennai that is labelled the most ‘conservative’ city in a very traditional country like India. I assured them I would work with them in this survey and when the results were out that HIV/AIDS was very much in India, we were unprepared for the storm that followed the news of AIDS prevalence in India.