The story of HIV/AIDS in India is one of denial and delusion

It was a hot muggy July day in 1987. 22nd of the month, humidity was at its peak during that particular week in Chennai. Noorie Saleem had come to meet a doctor, who had her blood test results. Noorie sat in silence looking at the doctor as she was informed that her body contained the deadliest virus known to man: AIDS (the term HIV hadn't been coined till then). Noorie had six months to live and to plan her exit from this world.  

Dr Suniti Solomon, Noorie's doctor, had just a year before begun looking for the virus in India. The assumption was that since there was no "LGBT community" in India, there was bound to be no virus either. AIDS was a disease which had ravaged the gay community in America since late 1970's.

Suniti's research led her to a bunch of arrested sex workers in Chennai from whom she took some blood samples. Six of the sex workers tested positive. Shocked at her finding, Suniti sent the blood samples for further testing to Johns Hopkins University lab. All six came back positive, confirming her deepest fears once again. As she announced to the medical fraternity that AIDS had come to India, she was met with disbelief, dismissal and discrimination.

India didn't wake up to the HIV/AIDS crisis until it was quite late.

Infact, it was only when scientists discovered that HIV could actually be passed on through blood transfusions that it came as a shock to the health ministry here. But even so, India was shy to admit that there was a problem. During the Narsimha Rao government, in order to address the need to get more dollars into the economy, the first plans to tackle the disease were drawn up - World Bank had for the first time got involved in a public health project and was giving loans at a fairly subsidised rates.

However, 30 years since HIV/AIDS was first detected in India, the country still has the third highest number of positive patients in the world.

Meanwhile, 29 years after she was diagnosed with HIV, Noorie Saleem is still alive and living in Chennai. She runs an orphange for abandoned children.