The International AIDS Candlelight Memorial is observed on every third Sunday in the month of May. Started in 1983, the global observation has over the years emerged as the largest grassroots initiative for HIV awareness in the world with coalitions of communities affected by/living with HIV and AIDS, service providers and various organizations joining in to put the spotlight on the fight against HIV and AIDS. The advent of the observation is significant for the 80’s was a period wherein there was a marked ignorance about HIV and AIDS and a great sense of fear. These twin factors contributed to stigma and discrimination to people living with HIV/AIDS or those at risk of it. For a long time, HIV/AIDS was considered to be confined only to homosexuals even in Western countries. Slowly, it would emerge that there would was no specific section of the population that HIV/AIDS would be confined to. And because it touched upon the lives of socially high profile people including celebrities in the form of fashion icons and designers, sportspersons and performing artistes, a sub culture of talking about HIV/AIDS and taking it to the public domain emerged. This would indirectly lead to a growing spotlight that succeeded in drawing global attention and bringing in its wake, studies and research, the beginning of charity events and philanthropic drives to fund discussions and the like. Three decades down the line from the first cases of HIV and AIDS emerging, a lot has changed but yet remained constant.
To begin with, someone infected with HIV was thought of as being on a death sentence but the growing studies and research taking in the world of medicines coupled by the rowing funding for looking at therapies and treatment led to the now accepted therapy called Anti Retro viral therapy. But even on this front, when ART medication was first used to arrest the impact of HIV on the human body in 1995-96, there were only multiple combinations then that had to be taken round the clock and came on a very expensive price. Even with the steep cost, the medication then was not able to keep down a host of opportunistic infections. Three decades into the HIV/AIDS journey, there are now over 30 medicines approved for the treatment of HIV infection. The advances being made on the medicine and research front is now such, that symptoms of HIV infection can be held at check while globally, the mortality is falling. But unfortunately enough, the same does not apply as a standard for in developing countries there are cross cutting factors which impacts on the health status of a HIV positive person. Issues such as nutrition, hygiene, safe access to safer sex and clean needles and syringes, free diagnosis for the various opportunistic infections make all the difference in staying a health life after one gets infected with HIV. For populations at risk of getting HIV infection, the barriers to easy access for health facilities and safer means of injecting or sex often led to infections.
It goes without saying that despite the growing awareness about HIV/AIDS, there are still cases of stigma and discrimination that still hinders the fight against HIV/AIDS. The lack of a service friendly environment that enables marginalized communities like transgenders and cross dressing effeminate men to seek treatment for sexually transmitted infections is still a concern in India. The same goes for sex workers and female injecting drug users who remain the most vulnerable to being harassed and deprived of their rights to access for treatment and diagnosis. After free ARTs was rolled out in India, the situation has changed for people living with HIV/AIDS in the country but for certain states like Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram where injecting drug use has fuelled the HIV/AIDS epidemic due to the sharing of needles and syringes, the fight against HIV/AIDS is being undone by the spectre of Hepatitis C which is still unaddressed under the national AIDS control program. In light of all the gaps that need to be plugged in the journey towards zero HIV infection, a lot needs to be done. And as grassroots NGOs, networks of people living with HIV/AIDS and Government NGOs observe the day in Manipur, one hopes that there is a strong effort for all stakeholders to come together and ensure that national policies and programs also cater to specific regional issues. The International Candlelight Memorial affirms that even as many who are living with HIV infection are getting due attention in terms of their health and their social and civil rights, many countless others lack access to treatment and experience HIV-related stigma, discrimination and human rights violations on a daily basis. Globally, the observation calls upon leadership and political will to get into the fight against HIV/AIDS. It is high time, the political leaders took initiative to set the tone for HIV/AIDS related initiatives and policies in the country.