Al Jazeera examines HIV, drug use among women in Northeast India

Dec 2 2011

Al Jazeera examines HIV among women in India's Manipur state, particularly in the district of Churachandpur, where local non-governmental organizations "say more than one-quarter of the women use some kind of drugs and suffer from HIV; many, due to a lack of financial opportunities, will end up turning to" sex work to obtain money to buy drugs, the news agency writes. There are no long-term treatment facilities for people who use drugs or those living with HIV in the area, and there are no official statistics on how many women are living with HIV and using drugs, Al Jazeera reports. "The United Nations says these women can no longer be ignored," the news agency notes. Charles Gilks of UNAIDS India said the number of affected women must be determined and then organizations need to establish "interventions which those women can easily and reliably reach," Al Jazeera reports (Suri, 11/30).