The Hindu Business Line : Yale University to open AIDS research centre in Chennai

(From right) Mr. A. Vellayan, Deputy Chairman, Murugappa group, Ms Linda Lorimer, Vice-President, Yale University, and Dr Bala V. Balachandran, Founder, Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM), at a foundation stone laying ceremony of `Yale -GLIM Centre for Management Research' in Chennai on Monday. — Shaju John

Chennai , Jan. 6

YALE University of the US plans to open a centre in Chennai for research in prevention of AIDS. The university has received a $2.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the research, the university's President, Dr Richard C. Levin, has said.

The three-year grant will be used to conduct research on implementing structural interventions among high-risk groups in the four southern States of the country with the highest HIV prevalence.

"Structural interventions seek to alter social, economic, political and normative factors that make up the risk environments for HIV infection," Dr Levin said. The "interventions" attempt to reduce vulnerability to AIDS. These interventions include a range of activities from advocacy for use of condoms to attempts to raise self-esteem and empowerment on the part of sex workers.

Further, the interventions would seek to improve attitudes, practices and policies towards sex workers on the part of pimps, brothel operators, bar owners and police, says a press release from Yale.

In India, there are 5.1 million — 0.9 per cent of adult population — living with AIDS. There were 5,20,000 new infections in 2003. "As in many countries, the poor and socially marginalised in India bear the majority of the AIDS burden," the release says.

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