Calcutta Rescue is the only organisation providing free second-line anti-retrovirals to impoverished sufferers of drug-resistant HIV in West Bengal, India.
(1888PressRelease) April 21, 2007 - From Jack Preger,
Hon. Chairperson
Calcutta Rescue,
85 Collin Street,
Kolkata 700016.
India
In Memoriam - SD
When SD jumped to her death from a window of Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine last month, her tragic, desperate suicide made a very short appearance under the heading of “In Brief” in a leading Calcutta newspaper. I will not insult the memory of this HIV patient by changing her initials.
Nor will I endanger her next-of-kin by giving her name in full. Such is the stigma of HIV/AIDS in West Bengal. And yet it is probable that some 1% of the population of this Indian state is HIV-positive.
It is certain that 0.9% of tested expectant mothers are now HIV positive and a similar percentage of blood donors are also HIV-positive. The latter are blood donors, not blood sellers; and blood donors are among the most socially-conscious of the population.
If we look at the least socially-conscious (emphatically through no fault of their own) we find 26% of young prostitutes surveyed in Calcutta are now HIV-positive. And if we look at the treatment available for these patients, it is easy to understand why SD jumped to her death.
It is less easy to understand why her death was reported only “In Brief.”
The death of SD, the manner of her dying, the prelude to her death, what she and her loved ones endured before her death, what her loved ones will now endure for the rest of their lives - irrespective of whether they themselves are HIV positive or not - all this should have been described in as much detail as anything reported from Nandigram or Singur * because SD represents an army of the suffering upon whom are inflicted horrors beyond my capacity as a medical doctor to describe.
The opportunistic infections which accompany HIV and which so often kill before the actual virus kills, the lethal tuberculosis which in HIV patients so richly deserves the old term 'galloping consumption', the chronic wasting disease, fungal infections, syphilis and gonorrhoea, skin and other cancers, cardiomyopathy, diabetes, dementia, blindness, parasitic diseases, meningitis, pneumonias - all this and much more, is the burden of HIV/AIDS.
And what is done for these patients, many of who contracted this disease absolutely through no 'fault' of their own: from improperly tested blood transfusions or from husbands unaware they themselves were already infected, or from mothers unaware they were infecting their children in the womb, in child-birth or through breast-feeding?
Long-distance truck and train drivers, migrant workers searching for employment, young people duped and traded into prostitution - these HIV-positive victims of economic circumstances deserve help, surely? The intravenous drug users sharing contaminated needles, previously unaware in many cases of the risks they were taking - are they to be denied treatment because of their addiction?
Now in Kolkata, free anti-retroviral drugs are supplied to some 1,600 patients by Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine where SD ended her life. These patients are supposed to be below the poverty line.
This is a recent development - perhaps SD's disease had already progressed beyond the effectiveness of these drugs; perhaps she needed second-line drugs which are not available free from any Government Hospital and which cost (with discounts) up to Rupees 9450 (approx US$ 225) per patient per month.
Those patients now on first-line anti-retrovirals will sooner or later require second-line drugs. With properly managed drug regimes and adequate nutrition, the opportunistic infections will be reduced and patients may live reasonably healthily for 8, 10 or 12 years.
In Mumbai the international NGO “Doctors Without Borders” supplies some second-line drugs free. They do the same in Assam. And in the whole of West Bengal, with all its NGOs with all their salaried officials, their offices, their vehicles etc. there is only one source for free second-line anti-retrovirals, I believe, for HIV patients: Calcutta Rescue.
I am the Founder of this NGO, and I am proud that we are able to supply free second-line drugs to 34 patients, with donations from my friends and personal contacts. Apart from Doctors Without Borders and Calcutta Rescue, there are no other sources of free second-line anti-retrovirals in the whole of India, as far as I am aware.
Meanwhile, the Government of India plans a Mission to the Moon.......
I rest my case. And may that dear woman, SD, Rest in Peace.
* Nandigram and Singur are areas of West Bengal where farmers, share-croppers and farm workers are protesting against forcible acquisition of land for industrialisation - with bloodshed resulting.
Calcutta Rescue is the only organisation providing free second-line anti-retrovirals to impoverished sufferers of drug-resistant HIV in West Bengal, India. 
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