SAPPED

Yesternight I dreamt

Teeth piercing my jugular

Tears squirted, not blood.

Who Stole the bell?

There's been a theft

Someone stole the wedding bell

I cried "What the hell?"

HIV Aids

Seeing all those write ups yesterday, all those tv programs, one thing comes to my mind, why is this disease which claims hardly a few thousand deaths a year ( with the antiretroviral cocktail drugs therapy making it as controllable as diabetes or asthma, which are also auto immune diseases by the way) hogging so much of prime time, so much attention. It is just another disease. TB claims hundred times the fatalities that HIV aids claims. And what is all this taboo, this hush hush when we talk about it. Fifty years ago, Syphilis was talked about in hushed tones. And if u go back a hundred years,no one would mention the word "consumption" or touch a patient of consumption ( TB) Keats died of it. These are passing phases.There is every hope that a vacccine will be developed shortly. India is an active participant in this research.

When penicillin was discovered in the forties a sure shot cure for venereal diseases,( now known as STD) did it reduce promiscuity? I think disease and miracle drugs have nothing to do with promiscuity or morality. New diseases will emerge. Mosquito borne diseases like malaria claim a million lives an year. Do we spend even a hundredth of what we spend on Aids prevention on malaria prevention? What about deaths due to malnutrition? Cant we divert sosme funds to tackle this human tragedy?

I think it is the glamour, the big names linked to HIV Aids programs that give it such prominence. It has become a page 3 disease. Sorry for being so irreverent. But it is a fact.