The Hindu Business Line : AP politicos turn blind eye to AIDS issue

DESPITE the fact that Andhra Pradesh ranked very high in the incidence of HIV, legislators of the State seem disinterested to the cause and most of them choose to skip an important meeting organised by three reputed agencies fighting AIDS here on Thursday.

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), in association with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), held the meeting with a view to mobilise State-level political support to combat HIV/AIDS through "various preventive lines of defence".

There were only a dozen of them, including Ms Pratibha Bharati, Speaker, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister, Mr Kodela Sivaprasada Rao, Health Minister, Mr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, senior Congress leader, and the BJP Floor Leader, Mr K. Hari Babu, at the meeting.

Interestingly, an earlier meeting convened on the same cause too was attended by less than 20 legislators, though the State Government says HIV is very high on the priority list and has launched a high-pitched campaign.

A visibly upset Chief Minister felt that more legislators should have attended the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, he called for setting up a legislators' forum on the lines of the Parliamentary panel formed to tackle the problem.

Terming the situation grim in the State, he said urbanisation, national highways and habitats of sex workers were the breeding points.

He said there was an urgent need to enhance education campaign to bring awareness about the problem.

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