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But unless she does not use condoms, the HIV sword will continue to dangle over our heads. And obviously awareness has not worked. But Kayakalp has managed to overcome this hurdle in a unique way. This is evident in the fact that in March STD infections were down to 5 per 1000 wherease in January the clinics in the redlight areas reported about 40 per 1000 CSWs. Says Bora, “You cannot just hand condoms to the CSW and expect her to use it. By just creating awareness, the CSW will not start using condoms, you have to ensure its use. We feel that this is because she is so depressed and feels so hopeless that she lacks a health seeking behaviour. The doctors in the redlight areas do not treat them right. If a customer is charged Rs 20, he will charge a CSW Rs 50. Then he is the man repsonsible for their poor health, many a time. This is because most of the time they are given third degree antibiotics and often they develop an immunity to them. You have to understand that she is a human being and more than just a CSW. She has feelings, she has children and in my experience I have seen that a CSW has generally lost all hope and has become totally apathetic. The only thing she cares for is her child”. By showing her how she can help herself, her child, the CSW begins to feel an interest in life, she begins to see hope. Then she becomes amenable to adapting health seeking behaviour. We do not talk about condoms, rather we emphasise on her child’s health, her anemia and she is the ready to listen to what you tell her. Therein lies the key to condom use.

These women are either addicted to alcohol and need To tackle this problem the WHO introduced the Syndromic Intervention Programme, herein four NGOs have been alloted the acre of 1000 CSWs each.

Exploring alternative routes
The AIDS virus is a silent killer. The scars it imparts are both physical and psychological. At stake are both human life and an individual’s dealings with society – social stigma dealing the strongest blow. Loss of a job and ostracisation are the harsher truths. Then there are the costs of medication. The Human Immuno Deficiency virus kills indiscriminately and still lacks a potent cure. Now, alternative medicine is trying to help stem the rising costs of treating HIV as well as offering treatment to at least curb if not completely stop the onslaught of the virus. Many Ayurvedic doctors in Pune have begun offering alternative medicine and treatment to many HIV positives and those diagnosed with AIDS.

As of now the only hope an AIDS victim has is to prolong life by getting on to Anti Retro Viral therapy (ARV). The hitch? At Rs 3 lakhs a year, it becomes prohibitively expensive for most patients. Which is why Pune’s Ayurvedic doctors now seek to treat such patients with Ayurvedic medicines. Dr. Vilas Nanal at the Janakalayan Blood Bank and Dr. M D Shastri at Inlaks and Budhrani hospital are both involved in a project which helps HIV patients through Ayurveda.

Dr. Nanal’s aim has been to make a patient HIV negative. However, this hasn’t been feasible now. What Ayurveda does is help relieve symptoms and increase immunity to enable a person to lead a relatively normal life while being positive. “I have been treating patients with ayurvedic medicines for the past three and a half years. Initially we used a lot of medication, (all ayurvedic) about 12. But slowly we took them down to just five”, says Dr. Nanal.

There are even more patients at the Inlaks hospital. About 600. All of these have remained asymptomatic so far and have not infected their spouses and children. So does Ayurveda work? It might be too early for an answer. However, there have been five deaths at Inlaks, which, while a good success rate, still doesn’t answer the question of Ayurveda being a cure.

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