Kerala doesn't care about AIDS anymore

Anil S; Friday, October 29, 2010:

KOCHI: At a time when the Centre and most state governments take all possible measures to control the increasing number of commercial sex workers and make health tests mandatory for them Kerala is groping in the dark.

Unlike the AIDS control societies in other states, the Kerala State AIDS Control Society (KSACS) has not been carrying out registration of male/female sex workers. Similarly the state government has not been taking any action to make health certificate for sexually transmitted diseases mandatory for sex workers.

The information, revealed by KSACS under RTI Act, should send shock waves on the possibility of HIV epidemic due to unprotected sex.

In an RTI reply, the society revealed that it's not carrying out any registration of sex workers, neither does it provide any health certificate to them. HIV testing is being done at the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres (ICTC) in government hospitals and medical colleges.

"However no categorisation of the infected persons, such as number of sex workers etc is not done," said the reply. Interesting AIDS control societies in most of the states have taken measures to register sex workers in the respective states.

Recently the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had revealed that the southern states have the largest number of registered sex workers with Andhra Pradesh topping the list followed by Karnataka.

Delhi tops the list among the metros in the number of registered sex workers.

Currently a number of institutions are functioning in the national level to rehabilitate female sex workers. According to KSACS, there's a scheme called 'Ujjawala' under the department of social welfare state government to rehabilitate sexually harassed aged women.

There are four centres Chola P R Home Kannur, Swaruma P R Home Ernakulam, Swanthanam P R Home Kochi and Sangamithra P R Home Thrissur functioning under the scheme.

The officials of the KSACS said the registration of the sex workers is being done through various NGOs operating under the society. "The registration or health tests and treatment of them are not being done by the society.

The responsibility has been given to various NGOs like Suraksha through different projects. It's being done as per the instructions of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO)," said Dr T V Velayudhan, additional project director, KSACS.