Indian woman infected with HIV forced to abort her own baby

Sep 5 2006

According to officials in India, a pregnant HIV-positive woman was forced to abort her own foetus after doctors and nurses in the government hospital in Kolkata in eastern India, shunned her and told her they would not help her undergo an abortion.

The 23-year-old woman has said that the hospital had no sympathy for her and she was forced to pull out the foetus herself as health workers watched and instructed from a distance.

Roshni Mulani who has a two-year-old child, recently tested positive for HIV, and says staff read about her HIV status from medical reports.

They apparently threw medicines at her from a distance; Mulani is now recuperating at the house of anti-AIDS activist Ramen Pandey.

Ramen Pandey says many health workers in India still believe AIDS can spread by just touching.

A senior police official says a 35-year-old man with full-blown AIDS died after he was stoned inside a hospital compound in the same region; he had apparently been ostracised by his neighbours who feared that he may spread the virus.

Authorities and activists say such incidents illustrate just how much stigma and even paranoia are attached to the disease in India; investigations in both cases are under way.

In another incident in 2003, a woman was reportedly stoned to death by panicky relatives and neighbours in Andhra Pradesh.

According to the United Nations as many as 5.7 million Indians are currently living with HIV, more people than in any other country.