UN hails Indias HIV services to gay, transgender people UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, has lauded Indias efforts to provide prevention and treatment services for men who have sex with men and transgender people, while stressing the need for scaling up services and eliminating homophobia.
According to a Press release issued by the agency in New York, Indias AIDS response has resulted in a drop in new HIV infections by more than 50 per cent in the past decade. UNAIDS says that 67 per cent of more than 400,000 men who have sex with men in India are accessing prevention services. Indias rich tradition of inclusivity and social justice must include men who have sex with men and transgender people, Mr Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS executive director, said on the sidelines of the National Convention of Parliamentarians and Elected Representatives. Indias successful AIDS response has been possible owing to the strong participation of communities of men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who inject drugs and transgender people backed by a strong and progressive national AIDS policy, he said. According to estimates provided by Indias National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco), HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men in India is 7.3 per cent compared to a prevalence rate of 0.31 per cent among the general adult population. UNAIDS lauded the Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, for iterating his governments strategy to provide HIV services to groups at higher risk of infection and welcomed his call to have an HIV-sensitive policy and programmes so that marginalised groups affected by the virus were not denied the benefits of health and development programmes. UNAIDS also lauded a Delhi High Court order overturning a 150-year-old law and decriminalising homosexuality. The agency has pledged to work with the Indian government, civil society and community groups in realising the vision of zero new-HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths in India. Guidelines released by UNAIDS and World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that legislators and other government authorities establish anti-discrimination and protective laws to eliminate discrimination and violence faced by men who have sex with men and transgender people. The head of UNAIDS also welcomed the announcement that India would continue to manufacture generic drugs to combat the disease and said the decision would save millions of lives. After a meeting with Indias commerce minister Mr Anand Sharma in New Delhi, Mr Michel Sidibé said: Millions of people will die if India cannot produce generic antiretroviral drugs and Africa will be the most affected For me, it is an issue of life or death. The government of India reaffirms its full commitment to ensure that quality generic medicines, including antiretroviral drugs, are seamlessly available, and to make them available to all countries, a UNAIDS Press statement quoting Mr Sharma reads. In the statement issued in New York, UNAIDS said that Indias pharmaceutical industry produced more than 85 per cent of first-line anti-retroviral drugs used to treat people living with HIV. The agency stressed that the cost of the least expensive first-generation treatment regimen had dropped from several hundred dollars to less than USD 86 per patient per year with generic drugs. Mr Sidibé said: India, together with Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia, must forge an alliance with other high-income countries to ensure that no single person in the world dies because they could not afford to buy life-saving medicines or health care. Email: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay/post?postID=DCvNIbdTv_3_C5j5flK54H ZuyqMJgNC-L4S3BWR464eSfMgGEAMLax1OSqSI6REqIgVM3LQEejINlemMrw> modera...@gaybombay.in E Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gay_bombay http://groups.google.com/group/Gaybombay http://groups.google.com/group/GayIndia Public archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html Rss feed: http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com/maillist.xml GB Internet Radio at http://www.gaybombay.in/gbradio Web Sites: www.gaybombay.in www.gayindia.org Orkut: http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Profile?uid=15084918632470824129 Blogs: http://gaybombay.blogspot.com http://gaybombay.wordpress.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/gaybombay http://twitter.com/gayindia Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gaybombay http://www.facebook.com/gayindia
