The Hindu : Karnataka News : HIV incidence on the decline in Gulbarga district

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Wednesday, Mar 05, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka

HIV incidence on the decline in Gulbarga district

T.V. Sivanandan

GULBARGA: The incidence of HIV in Gulbarga district considered to be one of the endemic areas in Karnataka is on the downward trend according to the regular symptomatic surveys and results of blood tests done in the district hospital and Voluntary Counselling Testing Centres.

The non-governmental organisations (NGOs) closely involved in the awareness activities among the commercial sex workers and general public about the dangers of the disease and how it can be easily prevented, have acknowledged that the positive sex related diseases among those who underwent blood tests four years ago was much higher than the positive cases reported now.

A senior official of an NGO who preferred to remain anonymous told The Hindu here on Monday that if there were at least 20 positive symptomatic cases of sex related diseases out of every 100 persons, which later turned out to be HIV, now this figure has trickled down to 8 out of every 100 cases tested.

He, however, clarified that not all of those who tested positive for sex related diseases would ultimately turn out to be HIV cases and if these diseases were left untreated, there were chances of the affected person becoming prone to contacting HIV.

The continuous efforts and awareness programme taken up by the NGO and the Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society had its desired results, at least among the core group of commercial sex workers and using condoms had become almost universal among the commercial sex workers. The senior commercial sex workers, who have been adopted as peer workers by the NGO for taking up the awareness work, also act as bridge between the Government and the active commercial sex workers.

These peer workers bring the sex workers suffering from common diseases to the hospitals regularly and to the 22 referral clinics and two programme-linked clinics for the treatment of the sexually transmitted diseases. Providing regular and immediate treatment to these diseases solved most of the problems of the commercial sex workers. One of the major problems confronted by the NGO and government authorities involved in the awareness programme on HIV and AIDS was the presence of the “hidden sex workers”, who unlike the commercial sex workers, conduct their activities in their houses or in their friend’s house.

According to the official of the NGO, the concentration of the “hidden sex workers” were in every locality and as per one estimate the population of the “hidden sex workers” was 3 per every 1,000 population. “Keeping track of the ‘hidden sex workers’ is a difficult task,” he said.

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