Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM Inaugurates National Youth Leaders convention on HIV/AIDS

"I am truly delighted to participate again in this National Convention on HIV/AIDS at which we have assembled youth leaders from all parts of our country. Yours is a forum which can be a great force for effective work in the war against this deadly disease that HIV/AIDS has turned out to be.

Last year when I addressed this Youth Parliament, as it has come to be called, I gave you three messages:

First, I said, our youth leaders must lead by example and lead from the front. You must be the agent of change that you seek in others.

Second, I said, inform your friends and empower them to make safe choices. Act locally to create a global impact!

Third, I asked you to promise to uphold the dignity of every person living with HIV in our country by love, affection, and social support.

These messages, I believe, ought to remain your guiding principles in the ongoing campaign against HIV/AIDS.

Our Government is committed to providing leadership to the National AIDS Control efforts. We have made this commitment in various International Declarations and in our National Common Minimum Programme. For translating this commitment to reality we need to think boldly and set the bar far higher.

To start with, I do believe that this programme needs to get out of the narrow confines of the health department. It must become an integral part of all Governments departments. In fact, the National AIDS Control programme should be mainstreamed into the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as an integral part of the National Rural Health Mission and implemented efficiently through the available public health network. If we do so, we could upscale our efforts to the desired levels within a minimum period of time and we have no time to waste. We need to act to effectively check the further spread of this disease here and right now. This then should be our first priority.

You should fully comprehend the need to educate our young people about the modes of transmission of this deadly disease. Leading a healthy and safe sexual life is one of the commitments we must all make. This is particularly important given our traditional inhibitions about discussing such matters within our families and among our colleagues, quite apart from doing so in public. This, quite obviously, has to change, if we are to succeed in this war against HIV/AIDS, if we are to succeed in creating awareness of the hazards of unsafe sexual practices. Similarly, you must also spread awareness about public health and hygiene, including in the use of razors, syringes and during processes of blood transfusions.

On the other hand, with the rapid march of technology, the cost of detecting HIV/AIDS, as well as the medication required to keep the disease under control, are going down. But pace is not good enough. Prices must come down further to make these drugs more affordable and accessible to all. We must also sensitize our pharmaceutical industry to expand basic research to produce low cost drugs and vaccines. We need to strengthen our delivery systems to provide treatment for this disease even while minimizing drug resistance.

It is, therefore, our goal to ensure that in the next two years our health delivery system will be restructured to provide a comprehensive package of services to the community and to HIV infected persons. This package of services must consist of preventive services, promotional measures as well as the interventions for counseling and treatment. Simultaneously, a massive capacity building, awareness and counselling campaign should be launched all over the country with the help of public health professionals.

But it is also true that such a campaign cannot succeed if we leave it solely to Government and its agencies. Non-governmental organizations, civil society, the private sector, religious leaders, they must all play a prominent role, in coordination with Government and youth leaders such as yourselves. The private corporate sector must be galvanized effectively and made to adopt programmes in a serious and methodological manner covering their entire labour force. It must work to integrate programme activities in the workplace.

One reason why I am focusing on the need for us to take up the challenge of AIDS in right earnest is the simple logic of demography. India is today at the threshold of a major demographic transition with the age profile of our population favouring the youth. Our comparative advantage is increasingly a cheap and skilled labour force and a rising savings rate. But what if we begin to lose our youth to this disease? This will have serious consequences for our society, our economy, and indeed, our entire Indian polity. Like all epidemics, AIDS does not discriminate among its victims, but the youth are often the highest risk segment. Consequently, we must focus on this threat to our survival, threat to our future.

Reaching out on a scale and in a manner indicated would require us all to go beyond sloganeering to mobilize the various segments of society. Youth leaders, members of the media and social activists can contribute a great deal to shaping public opinion, attitudes and behaviour through their work and their own lifestyles. Consequently, you have a special responsibility to support the programme by stimulating responsible discussion on sensitive issues - less to sensationalize and more to educate and build and mobilise public opinion in the fight against AIDS. You must also convey the message of hope and compassion, that is vital for our society to sensitively handle our war against this disease.

To take the message to every home in our country, we must draw upon the local bodies. The 73rd and 74th Amendment of the Constitution of India, that Shri Rajiv Gandhi introduced with such great foresight, needs to be carefully exploited to achieve these goals. We must utilize the Gram Panchayat members and the members of municipalities. At the State level, concerted efforts for capacity building of the Health Staff and Anganwadi Workers need to be put in place in order to ensure widespread dissemination and identification of the problem. Your efforts should be to create capacities in every village, every town, every city to become HIV/AIDS free. It is these bodies who can help identify those who need counseling, those who are most vulnerable, and those who are in need of assistance.

I look forward to a year of intense engagement with all sections of our society. Let us not solely focus on inadequacies, but on what we can do, building on whatever we have in the first instance. Our focus should be on outcomes, not just on outlays. The HIV/ AIDS control programme is a major management challenge, which needs fresh ideas, a bold vision and an effective strategy to mobilise the vast latent potential of civil society in our war against HIV/AIDS. I have no doubt that the young and determined faces I see before me will change the course of our war against HIV/AIDS. We are committed to, we are determined to prevail and to overcome. I am certain that you will unleash the vast latent energy of our youth to overcome and to triumph over the constraints that have inhibited us so far in the past.

I wish you well in your endeavours."