First AIDS activist in isolated Indian state tries to force the

GAUHATI, India -- In the winter of 1994, Jahnabi Goswami was a shy 17-year-old bride, her husband chosen by her family in the traditional Indian way.

Today she is the first person in the northeastern state of Assam to publicly declare herself HIV-positive, having contracted the virus from her late husband.

"I have decided to declare that I am a person living with HIV so that scores of others like me, living in secrecy among us, can come out in the open and help fight the menace by making people aware," Goswami told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

She is one of millions of isolated HIV-positive people worldwide who are fighting to bring the deadly disease out of the dark.

It is women like Goswami who are being silently commended Sunday, World AIDS Day, as families remember the millions of dead worldwide.

In India, an estimated 4 million people have the HIV virus, or about 0.7 percent of the country's adult population.

That's well below sub-Saharan Africa's 8.8 percent and just above North America's 0.6 percent, but a recent U.S. government report predicted the number would climb to 20-25 million by 2010 -- figures the Indian government condemned as exaggerated and likely to cause panic.

Still, the potential for an AIDS explosion is high, though after seeing how unpredictable HIV spread was in Africa, experts are reluctant to make predictions about a country as large and diverse as India.

AIDS awareness in India is much higher in large, heavily populated cities such as New Delhi, Bombay and Madras.

When her father died in 1990 in their village in Kampur, 87 miles east of the state capital, Gauhati, her paternal uncle became her guardian. Four years later, he chose an up-and-coming businessman to be her husband and she readily complied.

Her husband never told her he had AIDS, until several days before he died at age 32 in April 1996. The next year, Goswami lost her 2-year-old daughter to AIDS.

"My in-laws had started to treat us like outcasts and nobody would come near us or touch us," she said, adding that she can cope with the threat of death, but not with the stigma AIDS carries.

"Back home in my village, I am not shunned by anyone. But here in Gauhati, landlords have been showing me the door the moment they learn that I am living with AIDS," said Goswami, who lives with an aunt.

With only 155 recorded AIDS patients and 404 HIV-positive cases, Assam has yet to be badly hit -- which is why Goswami is so vocal. She believes she can help prevent the spread before Assam catches up with other more cosmopolitan Indian states.

Syed Iftikhar Ahmed, head of the AIDS Prevention Society, estimates Assam's true death toll is likely 100.

Goswami works for the state agency, Assam AIDS Control Society, and has formed her own organization, the Assam Network of Positive People, to persuade sufferers to go public.

The only state agency dealing with AIDS in Assam, the Control Society is mostly funded by the National AIDS Control Organization, a federal program, and works closely with nongovernment and international health agencies.

Goswami travels from town to town lecturing on AIDS prevention and telling her story. She reassures HIV-positive people that they can fight it, though most Indians cannot afford the expensive new AIDS drugs available in the West.

"Until I die, I shall continue with my awareness campaign," she says.