Gates' foundation pledges $100 m for India AIDS campaign

From Indo-Asian News Service

New Delhi, Nov 11 (IANS) Microsoft chief Bill Gates Monday announced $100 million from his foundation to battle HIV/AIDS in India, asserting the row over the number of victims should not detract from the enormity of the challenge.

"We do not really know the number of HIV/AIDS victims in India but the sooner we bring attention to the problem and greater visibility, the better we can face it," Gates told a press conference here.

"There is no doubt that India faces a serious challenge."

On a four-day visit to India, Gates said AIDS was a growing crisis around the world and in some countries, 25 percent of the adult population were afflicted.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed an initial support of $100 million to slow down the spread of the dreaded virus in India, he said, the largest the organisation had funded in a single country.

The software czar was responding to a question about the projections by him and U.S. Ambassador Robert Blackwill about the extent of the disease in India that reportedly annoyed Indian authorities, especially Health Minister Shatrughan Sinha.

New Delhi asserted that Blackwill's projection that India would have 25 million HIV victims by 2010 was exaggerated.

Denying being a part of any study projecting these numbers or of trying to spread panic, Gates, who met Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the afternoon, said he hoped the numbers were not very high.

"So far, in the history of AIDS, every estimate of the spread of the disease has been low. My point is that numbers should not be the focus."

But toning down the loud alarm he sounded in the run-up to his four-day visit to India, Gates maintained Monday that the disease was at a "relatively lower level" and early stages.

While India had launched many initiatives against AIDS, a lot still needed to be done, he observed.

"India can not only address its own challenges and save millions of lives, but also help other developing countries with emerging epidemics.

"India is poised to be a global leader in the development of new HIV prevention technologies."

Gates said his foundation would work in collaboration with the federal government, mainly focusing on two aspects of the anti-AIDS campaign - the mobile population most prone to contracting and spreading the disease and communication and advocacy efforts to raise awareness.

Truck drivers, migrant labourers, construction workers and their partners, who are said to be more vulnerable to the disease, were a special focus of the initiative, which would be steered by minister Sinha.

But the Microsoft head hastened to explain that this was not to generate or spread damning stereotypes about certain sections of the population.

"It is everyone's problem and no one should have the impression that only a particular section should respond to programmes against AIDS. It is important that people with the disease are not treated in a discriminatory way or stigmatised."

Was it difficult convincing the government about the extent of the AIDS challenge it faced?

"I think it is a problem that you almost cannot talk too much about. It is worth reminding each other about the importance of fighting AIDS all the time and we should all carry it on our minds."

India has some four million AIDS patients at present, while global projections indicate 45 million new infections in the next eight years.

Said Helena Gayle, the chief of the Gates' foundation's AIDS and TB programme: "An estimated 28 million of the new infections can be prevented if existing HIV prevention strategies are scaled up and new prevention technologies are created.

"That precisely is the focus of our effort in India."

Gates, known as the world's richest man, is visiting India for the third time as he discusses health and IT programmes.

He will visit Bangalore, a Microsoft development centre in Hyderabad and address businessmen in Mumbai. Microsoft has had a presence in India since 1987, with offices in five Indian cities including Bangalore.

--Indo-Asian News Service