The Hindu Business Line : AIDS is `a disease turned into disaster'

June 5, 1981. That was when `Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report', a medical bulletin in the US, published `a report of a cluster of rare pneumonias among gay men'. And that was when `the American and then the global AIDS crisis began,' recounts Peter Gill in The Politics of AIDS, from Viva (www.vivagroupindia.com) .

"In 25 years, AIDS has killed 25 million, one million for each year of the epidemic, and another 40 million have been infected - a total exceeding the population of Tamil Nadu," reads a frightening snatch on the back cover. But AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is `a disease turned into disaster', argues Gill in what is billed `the first book to fix responsibility for the catastrophe'.

For instance, a chapter titled `the heart of the matter' talks about a debate that raged on in 2005, even as people died in Africa. The debate was: Condoms vs abstinence. `The Bush plan for AIDS prevention,' was in favour of abstinence and fidelity as measures to fight AIDS in Africa. "Condoms were appropriate for high-risk groups like prostitutes, soldiers, lorry drivers and `discordant' couples, but they were not to be promoted to the general public, still less to the young and unmarried." That was how the experiment unfolded in Uganda.

The move was retrograde, especially for a country that had earlier shown good results in tacking the killer menace using condoms. And the results are only too obvious.

`AIDS Rises With Abstinence Push,' reads a post dated November 22 on www.truthdig.com. The crisis continues to be unresolved. "Pope Benedict XVI is considering concessions over the use of condoms to fight AIDS - but the Vatican's overall ban on condoms will almost certainly remain intact despite the relentless rise in deaths from AIDS in Africa, Vatican sources say," informs a report dated November 23 on www.timesonline.co.uk.

Another such `righteous' thinking was `political reluctance to provide clean injecting equipment' in Vietnam. "Six out of ten Vietnamese with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) have been infected through drug injection," says Gill.

In the absence of clean needles, what circulated were contaminated ones, `the most efficient means of transmitting HIV'. Gill informs, "Epidemiologists in Asia have created terrifying graphs showing how a single HIV-positive drug addict can be responsible for tens of thousands of infections."

The book concludes with a wish to make AIDS history.

Treat AIDS as a public health problem, not a moral commentary, exhorts the author.

Let not sanctimonious attitude cloud the judgment of politicians and undermine their ability to act in the public interest, he pleads.

Apt read, for a world that observed one more AIDS Day only days ago.

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in