. It must have been difficult to do a survey of this kind way back then. How did you go about it?
A. We decided to test blood samples of women sex workers and approached the police for help. The police often raid hotels and other places tipped off as brothel houses and the sex workers caught are temporarily kept in a government remand home until further action is taken on them. Beginning at 6 am one morning, we collected 100 blood samples from the women over a period of days and sent them to CMC Vellore for testing.
Six women tested positive for HIV. We sent the sample to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) which sent the samples to US for further confirmation. US labs used advanced ‘Western Blot test’ and confirmed the presence of HIV in the samples sent from Chennai, India.
The storm that broke out in the Tamil Naadu Legislative Assembly when we accompanied the then Health Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr. Hande to announce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Chennai, left with mixed feelings of joy and shame. MLAs were upset with the news and groaned, “This shame has to come to light first in Chennai?”
Very soon college and school students came forward for HIV testing, without their parents’ knowledge, of course, and it was then that the gravity of the situation dawned on me and I decided to go out to people and talk—to promote awareness on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Chennai and the health risks and safety education that should reach the public first, in order to check the spread of this highly communicable disease.
Q. How difficult was it to spread awareness in a country that is steeped in misconceptions where even sex education is considered taboo?
A. I appealed to some city colleges to allow me to talk to students on HIV/AIDS and was promptly refused permission on the pretext that students were “too young to know about all these things.” Fr. P.P. George Principal of Sacred Heart College at Tiruppathur near Chennai invited me to address his students and that day was an eye opener of sorts to all of us. In the question hour that followed the HIV/AIDS awareness talk, the college students were so full of doubts on sexuality and sexual health that I felt totally inadequate to answer them. Some of them would certainly need help from a counselor, I thought. Some worried students wanted to speak to me in private and one even asked if having ‘just’ oral sex could pass on AIDS.
Following this I received several requests from city college principals to talk to their students. I prepared a team of counselors and volunteers and did our round of sensitizing students and the general public about the HIV condition. I still remember, the principal of a city women’s college called me to speak and told me her students won’t ask questions on sex, so I would just have to say my message and go. Contrarily, after my talk the girls begged for a question round and had so many questions to ask on gay sex, oral sex and a lot other matters that left me gaping and the Principal left the hall in embarrassment, requesting my counselors and me to deal with the situation.
A Rotary Club initiative brought together 78 college principals in Chennai city and things got easier from there. Our team has visited many high schools and spoken to the students on sexual health and preventing HIV transmission. Once I founded YRG-Care, AIDS management picked up tremendous speed and today after 22 years of exciting experience in tackling AIDS I’m happy there is a 50% drop in the spread of HIV/AIDS as per statistics from NACO . A lot of committed NGOs are on the field and we hope to do more to wipe out this menace from the face of the earth.
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