Unite against aids

That in a city like Mumbai there could be a series of three suicides, two on consequitive days at the JJ Hospital in Mumbai last fortnight by HIV+ve patients, is indeed shocking. It cannot be denied that the city is exposed to high awareness about AIDS through Ad campaigns of all sorts. Yet, it appears that there is no succour for the ravages of immunocompromised patients and the social stigma, as in any part of the country, continues to haunt patients. If it was complacency about a decade ago as regards prevalence and the numbers, today there is no perceptible change in the quality of patient councelling, especially at the initial stages. There is no sensitivity exhibited by all the medical and paramedical players when it comes to handling HIV +ve patients. At the diagnostic stage itself ‘death warrants’ are pronounced most insensitively and the patient is told that he will not live long.

It’s a frontal mental shock to the patients where the psychological setback, in addition to the wherewithal for the costly drug treatments and diagnostic check ups, add to their woes.

If the medical community and the educated class know that it is possible for HIV+ve patients to lead normal healthy lives by appropriate interventions, then it’s a systemic failure during the last decade that such education and awareness has not percolated down to the masses. Even as Indian companies have gained global recognition for supplying generic anti reteroviral drugs to the world’s poor countries, allopathic drugs are still prohibitively costly and out-of-reach to the marginalised within the country. There are many herbal or ayurvedic alternatives that have known and proven immune boosting properties that can work out to be affordable interventional therapies, provided, the general apathy and prejudice against ayurveda is set aside by the modern practitioners. In fact, this very hospital that has seen two suicides, has an OPD ayurvedic department that doles out herbal preparations like ‘Ashwagandha’ and ‘Shatavari’ for enhancing the immunity of HIV+ve patients. Chinese herbals also have preparations that help HIV+ve patients and there are known cases where patients with low CD4 count accompanied with weight loss have gained weight and registered improved CD4 counts well above the danger zone. There are many traditionalists in India who possess such knowledge passed down by their ancestors, who have tried out the combo herbals and obtained positive results that are commendable. Yet, they are not qualified people and modern science either riducles them or labels them as ‘quacks’ with regulators showing the schedule J card if they want to advertise or propagate their cures. Even if their cures are validatable, they are shunted from ICMR to CCRAS for years and the sheer bureaucratease wears them out even as these herbal cures turn out to be cheaper than ARVs. Any disease cannot be the exclusive preserve of any ‘pathy’ and if complementary medicine can help HIV+ve patients, it’s time Indian hospitals have the courage to carry out clinical trials on limited patients to prove the medicines work. Time is running out for India and it is high time ayurvedic, modern practitioners and regulators work towards an integrated approach at least for HIV, to begin with.

—nvramamurthy@expressindia.com