Vast distances a barrier to combating HIV/AIDS in India

Vast distances are a major hurdle to India's efforts to curb its soaring HIV rate.

India, which has the world's third largest HIV-positive caseload, gives drugs for free to HIV/AIDS patients. But doctors say this is not enough to stop the spread of HIV which is making inroads in rural India, especially among women infected by itinerant husbands, and also children.

For three days a month, Sambit squeezes into a crowded and often filthy train for a three hour journey to Delhi to receive HIV treatment.

"There's no seat and I am very weak," said the 30-year-old former tailor, who asked that his full name not be revealed. He can't afford lodging in Delhi and can barely afford the train tickets.

"I need to borrow money from my family for all these trips," he said.

Many patients in the same position simply give up treatment, an anathema in HIV therapy as it gives rise to drug resistance. These patients may then need more powerful second line treatment, which is not freely available in India.

"Travel can affect drug compliance. Patients who don't get family support, women who may not like to travel alone will just give up," said a doctor at a New Delhi hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to reporters.

There are 147 "antiretroviral therapy" or ART centres in the country, part of a government drive that has been encouraged by the World Health Organisation in a bid to prevent HIV from becoming a major health problem.

Delhi has nine such centres and is far better served than many other states. Up to 6,000 patients receive treatment in Delhi, nearly half of these live outside the capital.

The government now plans to build "link centres", small facilities that are closer to where patients live so people like Sambit can obtain their medications more easily.

"They just come to pick up the drugs if they have no side effects and they go home ... that saves transport and other costs," Rao said, adding that the plan was to have as many as 500 such centres all over India.

INFECTION FIGURES AREN'T GOING DOWN

India has 2.47 million HIV cases, according to the latest figures, but health workers say the number is rising rapidly and spreading to new population groups.

"Our numbers are going up," said Loon Gangte, South Asia coordinator of the Collaborative Fund for HIV Treatment Preparedness.

"It's not confined to high risk groups, it's going into the general population. It's not a problem of sex workers, drug users or truck drivers. These people have wives and children at home and the disease is making its way into the general population."

Sujatha Rao, director-general of the government's National AIDS Control Organisation, says doctors are increasingly seeing women infected by their husbands.

In some clinics, 1 out of 100 women who come for ante-natal care checkups are HIV positive, she said.

"It is a generalised epidemic," she said. "We have pockets where the prevalence is more than 1 percent among ante-natal care mothers, so we need to intensify our work."

Out of India's 611 districts, HIV prevalence is more than 1 percent of the population in 156 districts.

"The epidemic is getting deeper into (certain) rural, general areas of the country ... it is migrant-related. They go to work and then they take back the infection to their homes," she said.

Even though HIV drugs are free, only about 155,000 people have access to retroviral drugs, up from 20,000 just two years ago.

Health expert say there are many people who do not know they are infected or who do not know that treatment is available.

Some health professionals believe India's HIV problem is closely intertwined with poverty and that the government must tackle poverty if it seeks to curb the spread of HIV.

"Many of these people are very poor, they worry about food, shelter. So they may not think their HIV status is a problem because they don't even know where their next meal is coming from," said Errol Arnette of the help group Sahara.

"A lot of AIDS patients die of TB because it's hard for hospitals to keep them (in hospital). HIV patients are just thrown in a corner because of heavy stigma."