Living India

A Global Pandemic

The plight of AIDS orphans in India is one of immeasurable complexities that destines children to die with the virus left unchecked and untreated. The debilitating stigma that continues to surround HIV in India renders children orphaned by AIDS to be forcefully driven from their villages and left to fend for themselves. Living India cares for 60 children with HIV/AIDS once abandoned to these horrifying circumstances.

The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS has now passed 30 years and still there is neither a vaccine nor a cure. The statistics that describe the many categories of the pandemic are mind boggling—tens of millions have died—been orphaned—live with the virus and its opportunistic illnesses and still millions are infected with the virus annually. For the past decade the primary brunt of the pandemic has been in Africa, even as India, China, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Eastern European countries have all become areas of increased infection rates.

The statistics of HIV/AIDS in India state that there are 2.8 million people living with HIV/AIDS and as many as 5 million AIDS orphans. These statistics have been questioned by many working in India and argue that the real number of infected is closer to 12-14 million. Regardless of the significant gap between the official and anecdotal data, there are many facts about HIV/AIDS in India today:

  • The majority of the infected are heterosexuals and sex-workers are the primary means of transmission.
  • There is a significant transmission of HIV from drug/needle use in the Northern area.
  • Married women contract the virus from the husbands and usually find out they are infected during pregnancy tests or when the husband goes to the hospital to die.
  • The Indian government will not accept any orphans who are infected with HIV.
  • The majority of those living with HIV/AIDS come from the rural poor who are illiterate and rarely have access to healthcare and the medicines needed to stay healthy and alive.