From despondency to optimism—25 years of HIV/AIDS in India

The first case of HIV/AIDS in India was detected in the sex workers of Chennai in 1986. It was a kind of shocking disbelief, which ultimately transformed into panic and then hopeless resignation. According to Dr Ramesh Paranjape, Director National AIDS Research Institute, Pune, ‘We never thought that HIV would ever visit India and take us on. At that time HIV was considered to be a disease of the western world and we had nothing to do with it. But slowly with more and more cases testing positive for the virus, it became a grave concern for us too.’