A Silent Murmur

India has 2.27million HIV+ individuals, placing in the top three ranking worldwide, along with South Africa and Nigeria. Despite being the world’s fourth largest economy, India only invests 1% of its GDP in healthcare, which is much lower than in many African countries. The Global Fund, based in Geneva, has supplied New Delhi with USD $1.8billion since 2002 to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This is clearly a huge sum, however many of the experts working on the frontline in the fight against HIV/AIDS state that this aid has not reached the patients, due to the massive level of corruption that is rife throughout the system.

This degree of corruption, and the stigma that the victims of the virus suffer, have meant that the reality on the ground has nothing to do with the statistics issued internationally from New Delhi. The figures have been manipulated, no doubt to give donor countries and aid organizations a different perception than the reality of the actual daily lives of the HIV patients in the hundreds of local hospitals that offer them treatment, which operate away from the gaze of the international community and detached from their financial aid.

In a country which is proud to be the world’s fourth biggest economy, it is amazing to witness how little infrastructure and support there actually is for the 2.27million HIV+ sufferers. In general, the most effective medical centres for HIV patients are the ones run by international organizations which receive foreign investment, on top of the government investment. These are sadly only available to a minority of those in need, but are what the government uses to show the international community that they are making advances against HIV and Tuberculosis. Without doubt, the rest of the medical centres not in this category, and their patients, who are out of sight of international observers, are at the mercy of the corrupt system.

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