|
|
Change Your Life! |
WHO's Brundtland warns of AIDS threat to India |
|
News
|
|
|
September 6, 2000
NEW DELHI (AP) - With polio and leprosy about to be eradicated in India, World Health Organization Director Gro Harlem Brundtland warned Tuesday that the country's next big health battle could be against AIDS, although only .35 percent of the population is believed to have the deadly virus. That percentage translates into 3.5 million people in India, because the country's population is estimated to be 1 billion. "Although India is seen as a region that isn't hit to the extent of many other countries, as the cases are increasing the drama would be unfolding," Dr. Brundtland warned. "Millions of people are at risk." She said that the most imminent risk is that AIDS would break out of the pockets where it is found - areas of brothels and truckers, for example - and spread quickly into the general population, as it has in other countries. The figure of 3.5 million has been questioned in India, where there is resistance to sex education being taught in schools and condoms being advertised. The government and the U.N. agencies have disputed over the figures, and news reports have shown that in some cases the AIDS figures were derived from surveys by condom makers. Dr. Brundtland said she stood by the figure, saying scientific methods were used to estimate the 3.5 million. She praised the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for "looking upon AIDS as the health threat that it is." She also praised India's achievements in eradicating Guinea-worm disease, in moving toward eliminating leprosy by next year and eradicating polio by 2005. "I particularly wish to commend the intensified national immunization days where millions of children are immunized," she said. "Within a year or two we expect to eliminate leprosy as a public health problem," she said. "Ninety percent of the cases are in India, Nepal and Indonesia." "We are now very close to eradicating polio. An extra hard final push is needed," Dr. Brundtland said. India had only 108 known cases of wild polio virus last year. Dr. Brundtland said, however, that a nation's health system is judged by the general health of its people. In India, as in other Asian countries, she said, women are disadvantaged because they are underfed and undereducated. She presented to the Indian government a WHO report on women's health in South and Southeast Asia. She said the report showed that Asian boys are better fed than Asian girls. "In India, 80 percent of the women have anemia or some kind of nutritional deficiency during pregnancy, which creates a burden to the woman and the child," said Dr. Brundtland. India's health minister, Dr. C. P. Thakur, received the report from Dr. Brundtland at a press conference and said the government was working to "protect women before they are born." "In some places of India there are cases of female infanticide," Thakur said. "We are waging a war." He said the government was concentrating on eliminating baby killing, getting young girls into school, delaying their marriage until after 18, and seeing that they get good food and vitamins during pregnancy. |