Discrimination against AIDS patients to be stopped in India

India's Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has told an AIDS conference that his government plans to introduce a law to stop discrimination against people infected with the deadly virus.

India has the world's second largest HIV/AIDS population and a huge stigma is attached to people who are HIV-positive in India. Many of the country's 5.1 million people with AIDS face severe discrimination because of widespread lack of awareness about the illness and activists say many employees of hotels, factories and textile firms have lost jobs after testing positive. They are either forced to quit, given early retirement or declared unfit to work.

A health ministry statement says that people living with HIV/AIDS face stigma and discrimination and, therefore, care and support to such patients needs to be mainstreamed through general health services.

Experts say the most alarming trend is the spread of the disease to villages, with rural India accounting for 59 percent of infections compared with 41 percent in cities. many people do not even know they are infected and the virus is spreading into families, infecting mothers and children.

India's HIV problem has assumed serious proportions despite health programmes to halt its spread. Over the years, HIV/AIDS has moved beyond traditionally high-risk groups such as prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals and experts say the number of those infected could quadruple by 2010.

The World Bank has warned the disease could become the single largest cause of death in the world's second-most populous country unless there is progress on prevention.

Ramadoss says the draft legislation to end discrimination against AIDS patients has been finalised will soon be presented to parliament.