WASHINGTON -- Dr. Vineeta Gupta, with an MBBS medical degree from India, is the founder and director of Stop HIV/AIDS in India Initiative (SHAII), based in this nation’s capital. At first glance, she looks just like another bright and pretty graduate student from India that one runs across here all the time. She’s about 5’6” tall, has a wide smile and wears a tika or dot between her eyebrows.

Last autumn, she came to give a presentation at my place, Dr. Kaung’s Salon, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Dr. Gupta recalled that when she graduated from medical school in India about a decade ago, she worked very much “by the book.” At the first clinic she was assigned to, she examined patients and wrote prescriptions.

One day, a woman came in who exuded such a strong odor that the whole room was permeated with it. She was an AIDS patient. Dr. Gupta wrote a prescription for her and handed it to her. The woman was so furious she tore up the prescription and threw the tiny bits of paper in her face, saying, “What am I supposed to do with this?” Up till that point, Vineeta said she didn’t imagine a patient might not have the money to buy the medicines she prescribed.

            The shock of this encounter was so great that Dr. Gupta established SHAII, and brought it to D.C. where the world’s AIDS policies are advocated and coordinated. SHAII’s advisory board is headed by Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global AIDS Alliance, and composed of medical doctors from different ethnic groups in India. Its goal is to coordinate Indian and international advocacy efforts to address the HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria pandemics in India. The development of free, high quality basic health care systems, access to affordable generic medicines and a gender sensitive approach, are some of SHAII’s goals.

Donations needed

Those who want to help SHAAI can make an online donation at http://www.globalaidsalliance.org or send a check to SHAII, c/o Global Aids Alliance/1413 K St. NW, 4th Floor/Washington, DC 20005. SHAII also welcomes volunteers and interns on research, outreach and fundraising.

            Dr. Gupta noted any SHAII efforts needs public education and awareness campaign. At the Salon, Vineeta related an incident about the outreach people giving a workshop on condom use, using a broom handle to demonstrate the proper use of condoms. They then stood the broom with a condom on it near the door.

Imagine their consternation when the men in the village apparently told each other this was the way to prevent HIV/AIDS–by putting a condom on a broom and standing it near a door. Nervous laughter greeted Dr. Gupta’s story at the Salon. A man said it was unbelievable. But of course, in a largely uneducated, superstitious setting it is entirely believable.

            Since the epidemic first appeared in 1981, more than 25 million people worldwide have died of AIDS. There are 40.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and of these 17.5 million are women. In India, with its huge population and high poverty levels, there are 6.5 million people infected with HIV, and 2 million HIV/AIDS orphans. There are approximately 250,000 HIV positive children in India, and less than 5 per cent of them receive antiretroviral therapy.

In Burma, my country of origin and India’s neighbor to the southeast, Johns Hopkins University HIV/AIDS researcher Dr Chris Beyrer, who gave a presentation with US Campaign for Burma in 2005, said that a new HIV variant has appeared, and follows the world’s trade routes, especially the overland drug and human trafficking routes to Central Asia and China. HIV/AIDS is spread by the sexually promiscuous behavior of truckers on the road, who then bring it home to their wives.

Dr. Gupta said Indian women aged 15-24 are twice as likely to be HIV positive as men in the same age group. Reason: Low socio-economic status and an inability to negotiate safer sex with their partners, and dirty needles and drugs. In India, Vineeta said, 60 per cent of all medical care is provided by quacks, who of course have no medical training whatsoever. In the face of a public health problem of such mind-boggling proportions, most people might get discouraged, but not Dr. Vineeta Gupta.

Under Dr. Gupta’s leadership, SHAII was able to mobilize a global support network to oppose amendments to the Indian Patents Act that threatened access to affordable generic medicines. The SHAII campaign resulted in significant positive changes in the proposed amendments. SHAII has also conducted media outreach and events to challenge the privatization of health care in India.

Privatization, including privatization of health care, has been proposed in India as a free market way to counteract India’s post -World War II central planning, an economy dominated by international financial institutions such as The World Bank and the IMF.