Global bodies must publicly recognise India’s contribution in minimising impact of HIV: PHO

Mumbai: Global bodies like United Nations (UN) and World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNAIDS must publicly recognise India’s contribution in minimising the impact of HIV/AIDS globally, the People’s Health Organisation (India) said in the run up to the 35th World AIDS Day (WAD) which falls on 1 December 2023.

“India’s role in AIDS control is heroic, though the global agencies - United Nations, WHO, UNAIDS - deliberately shy away from acknowledging India’s contribution in making anti-retroviral therapy (ART) affordable and accessible to over 90 per cent of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the world. Can you imagine Global AIDS Scenario minus India?,” asked Dr Ishwar Gilada, Secretary General of Peoples Health Organisation.

According to him, this WAD is also an occasion to portray India as a great global saviour, especially the global south.

Dr Gilada, who is also the President Emeritus of AIDS Society of India (ASI), and Governing Council member of International AIDS Society (IAS), said: “India has played the greatest role in normalising the AIDS pandemic. Today HIV is a chronic manageable disorder, even better than diabetes.”

“WAD is occasion to take stock and reflect upon what has been achieved towards the prevention, control and management of HIV and where do we lag behind. Initially, the WAD used to be riddled with grim scenarios – condolence meets and quilts in memory of departed souls. We used equate HIV as demon, dinosaur, anaconda, volcano, quakes, floods to create scare projecting the virus as killer like slogans “Sex Thrills but HIV kills!” The achievements have been great in saving millions of lives and several more from getting HIV infections globally during the past two decades,” he said. 

Dr Gilada said that it is indeed very important to do Research and Development for treating diseases, but it is all the more important to reach the fruits of R&D to larger humanity, by making them affordable and accessible. And that is done by India. We are eager to see the global leaders acknowledge India’s role at least on this WAD, not merely in ART, but also in treating and preventing other infections vaccines.”

“It is well established that we have adequate and efficient tools to end AIDS - be it the science-backed tools and approaches to prevent HIV transmission, or diagnosing and treating PLHIV so that they can live healthy fulfilling lives. We are progressing but not progressing fast enough, to end AIDS by 2030. An array of ‘missed opportunities’ is plaguing the AIDS response globally. Factors like lack of accountability, sub-optimal programme effectiveness, and complacency are slowing us down from reaching the goal of an AIDS-free world. Covid-19 pandemic did play spoilsports, but we cannot continue using it as an excuse for non-achievement of goals. Covid-19 is long over!,” he added.