and AIDS in the state avoid government hospitals because they fear being treated as pariahs. He estimated that the majority of patients with H.I.V. Infused with frightening life-and-death consequences. Balakrishna at his clinic, said the denial of care to AIDS patients at government hospitals was an underreported scandal of large proportions, Achanta Vivekanand, an AIDS specialist in Warangal who treated Mr. He also said that some state health care plans like arogyasri yojana, which insures lower-income patients for major operations, have clauses that disqualify people with AIDS and H.I.V., making such discriminationĭr. Virus that causes AIDS can be transmitted only through unprotected sex, blood transfusions, the sharing of hypodermic needles or from mother to child. That ignorance is also displayed among medical professionals in government hospitals, who are sometimes afraid to touch patients with AIDS and H.I.V. “ ‘Hey, I’m getting married next week, but I had unprotected sex with a prostitute “I get unbelievable phone calls from people who get my number off the Internet,” Dr. and AIDS researcher in Andhra Pradesh who founded the International AIDS Prevention and Research Organization in 1995, said that the Internet had helped disseminate informationĪbout the disease to younger people, helping stem the spread of the disease in Indian cities, but that ignorance still contributed to the high number of new infections in the state. Places like Warangal, where truck stops are commonplace and prostitution plays a significant but undocumented role in the local economy, are contributing to the epidemic in the state.ĭr. In India with 500,000 cases in a population of 85 million, according to a 2012 survey by the World Bank. and AIDS in Andhra Pradesh, which has the highest prevalence Balakrishna’s case, but his complaints have been echoed by many others with H.I.V. Officials from Mahatma Gandhi Memorial declined to comment on Mr. “They said that that they could not help me because I have AIDS,” Mr. But he left the building untreatedīecause of the results of a routine blood test taken before his surgery. In December, he entered Mahatma Gandhi Memorial, the largest government hospital in Warangal, a district 90 miles northeast of Hyderabad, to have an abscess removed from his neck. Motorbike parts, relics of a time when he was still able to work as a mechanic. Balakrishna, a 38-year-old AIDS patient, pushed his gaunt body out of bed with his skinny arms, his knees wobbled as his feet hit the floor. Credit Sami Siva/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Achanta Vivekanand, a consultant physician at the Catholic-run Karunalayam care center in Warangal, India, treating an H.I.V.-positive patient who also has tuberculosis.
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