ADDRESS BY SHRI K.R. NARAYANAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE AIDS SOCIETY ASIA AND PACIFIC CONFERENCE

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 8, 1992

Distinguished delegates from India and abroad, I have great pleasure to welcome you all, on behalf of the Government and people of India, to this somber International Congress on the awesome subject of AIDS ! It is a subject of engrossing interest to the 850 million people of my country and to millions in Asia-Pacific and Africa who are so vulnerable and defenseless in the face of this new scourge of mankind. We are heartened that so many outstanding medical experts, social scientists and workers, political leaders and representatives of the people have assembled here in Delhi to discuss what threatens to be an apocalyptic epidemic ..It is ironic that mankind should be faced with such threats when a new era of peace and co-operation has begun in the world, and when golden fruits from the tree of technology are dangling in the pleasure garden of the affluent world, raising tantalising hopes even in the minds of deprived millions in developing countries.

The golden apples in the new Garden of Eden are being bitten by the silent serpent of the AIDS virus, slithering through our midst. It is not just AIDS only that afflicts mankind to-day. The old danger of nuclear holocaust, though warded off by the end of the cold war, still lurks behind the diplomatic curtain of peace and reconciliation. The so-called population bomb that has been ticking away ticks now more slowly, but has not yet been defused. The green-house effect, global warming and ozone depletion hold out catastrophic threats to the planet and the human race. And AIDS has to-day raised a ghastly menace to human development and human survival. All these seem to be inter-linked in a fundamental sense, creating a physical, cultural and civilization crisis for mankind.

Several and very respectable orthodox reasons can be advanced for this tragically paradoxical predicament at which mankind has reached to-day, through the phenomenon of progress But at the root of it, is what Mahatma Gandhi emphasized, the pursuit of greed, passion and power by man. The endless multiplication of wants and the artificial creation and sophistication of wants, are distorting human values and life-styles. The production and consumption of things on a never-ending chain of expansion has resulted in intolerable inequities of distribution and depletion of natural resources causing pervasive pollution and environmental and ecological dangers. These threats to mankind are related, concerted and overwhelming. We need a co-ordinated multi-sectoral approach to deal with them.

Science and technology, governmental and political action, and community action on a massive scale, are required to face this host of problems. AIDS, especially require such a determined and well-coordinated response, from society as a whole. For developing societies, the basic building up of health care systems, food security and higher nutritional standards, population control and family planning, literacy and education, environmental and ecological protection, constitute the indispensable social infrastructure upon which the war against AIDS could be waged. Without that infrastructure the scientific and medical battle against the HIV virus cannot be conducted, not to speak of winning it.

I am, therefore, glad that the governments and voluntary organizations of the Asia-Pacific region, and international organizations like WHO, UNDP, UNESCO and UNICEF are involved in the organization of this Conference. This involvement should lead to world action against the HIV and AIDS. May I say that the Security Council of the United Nations has more urgent and weighty reasons to organize and conduct a world-wide operation against AIDS than it has had in any other regional or international crisis in recent times...Scientists, in spite of their best efforts, have not yet succeeded in understanding the mysterious HIV virus and its possible accomplices and in working out a preventive mechanism or a cure.

It seems at present, that neither prevention can prevent nor cure can cure this deadly disease. The HIV has proved to be an elusive and quick-change artist of destruction. However I am optimistic that science and technology will in the end find some response to this challenge. But I do not know if the governments of the world and the great multi-nationals are investing enough on research in this field. Of what avail is it making better nuclear weapons and missiles for defence and conquering new planets at astronomical costs, if mankind is to be debilitated and devastated by AIDS ? .
         
It is the consensus among experts that the best defence against this disease is prevention, however penetrable the defence line may be, at present. This defence line ought to be built in the wants, pleasures and life-styles we pursue. During the Crimean War Florence Nightingale argued that if you overcrowded your soldiers in dirty quarters, there would be an outbreak of small-pox. George Bernard Shaw, that inveterate iconoclast, held that “the characteristic microbe of a disease is a symptom instead of a cause”. We now know that most of the microbes and viruses, one cannot vouch for HIV in this regard, originate in the environment and life-style of a community or people, and that they catch on and flourish in conditions of poverty, malnutrition, insanitation and unhealthy, unwholesome and unnatural living patterns and practices.

An authority from the Birmingham Medical School wrote some years ago:- “The most important medical advance of the nineteenth century was the history that, infectious diseases were largely attributable to environmental conditions, and could often be prevented by control of influences which led to them; the most important advance in the twentieth century is the recognition that the same is true of many non-communicable diseases.” I do not know if the 21st century experience would be that AIDS also has its origin and career in the environmental conditions and life-styles of the people.
 
One interesting fact or rather trend in the developed countries is that preventive measures including educational campaigns has somewhat slowed down the spread of this disease. Could it happen in developing countries also. 90% of the AIDS affected people, it has been estimated, will be living in the developing countries in the near future, due to their extreme vulnerability. The recent experience of Uganda shows that through a combination of medical measures, social action, and determined political leadership, it might be possible to make an impact on the spread of the disease. What is needed is a multi-sectoral approach. Most of the social and anti-poverty programmes are developmental as well as preventive measures against AIDS.

For example the popularisation of quality condoms will be useful both for family planning and for defending, however, partially, against AIDS. So also screening of blood in blood banks, control of drug abuse and intravenous drug injections, will have anti-AIDS as well as beneficial health effects. The same is true of literary and education, and improving the status, health and welfare of women. It is estimated that over 50% of those suffering from AIDS are women, and the percentage may increase in the future. Thus it is necessary to launch a wide-spread campaign for making people aware of the dangers of AIDS and popularising the preventive measures to be taken against its spread.
 
One problem in developing countries is the stigma attached to this disease and misconceptions as to how it is transmitted. That requires a campaign by itself. It is with this in mind that the Hon’ble Minister of Health and myself have received bouquets from some of the HIV affected boys and girls and shook hands with them in the full glare of the cameras. We have to teach the people that AIDS patients should not be ostracised, and what they need is understanding, compassion and attention.
 
While there are a host of preventive measures to be taken the fact of the matter is that the principal vehicle of the transmission of the AIDS virus is sexual intercourse. In 85% of the AIDS cases transmission is effected through this medium. Now it is easy to preach this preventive method but difficult to make people accept it in practice. Fortunately, in the old societies like that of India there exist some of the traditional family and marital values, and social pressures on which percipient publicists can build up an effective mass campaign: In the old days and, even to-day, most religions have had recourse to the idea of the horrors of Hell in order to keep people god-fearing and virtuous.

The idea was also used for deception and exploitation of the ignorant masses. In regard to AIDS we can follow the religious strategists of old, not as deception but as depiction of stark and honest truth, by telling people of the Hell on Earth that this disease is going to create for mankind. The Video that we have released to-day and such other educational and even propagandist programmes ought to be widely disseminated to let the people know of the ghastliness of this on-going epidemic.
 
I have emphasized the need for a preventive strategy as all other speakers before me have done. This strategy is based on strengthening the immune system in the human body. Now Ayurveda and other indigenous systems of Indian medicine, are primarily based on strengthening the immune system to fight all manner of diseases. I am strongly of the opinion that allopathic and the indigenous systems of medicine, should work together to explore methods of strengthening the human immune system against the HIV invasion.

I would repeat here the words of the Pasteur Institute scientist Luc Montagnier that “Dogmatism is a deadly sin in science”. Scientists have to explore every avenue, every promising hypothesis. In this exploration and in building up of health defences in the third world international organizations and the rich countries of the world will have to play a more positive role. Though only 5 or 10% of AIDS cases have occurred in the developed world, it cannot remain safe if the 90% AIDS cases that bedevil the developing countries continue to exist or grow. AIDS seem to be uniting the interests of the world and humanity as a whole in a rather gruesome manner.
 
                    May I wish your deliberations all success