Prime minister - Health care should be high on India's agenda

NEW DELHI, India -- India's prime minister urged top policy-makers to make health issues part of the nation's political agenda in an effort to slow the rapid spread of HIV-AIDS.

Indian Health Minister Sushma Swaraj told a conference of political leaders and AIDS workers Saturday that clinical trials were under way in Indian laboratories to develop an AIDS vaccine. Swaraj said she hoped India would be the first country to develop such a vaccine.

"In India, issues pertaining to public health do not normally find a place on the nation's political agenda," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as telling the conference. "This is not so in other democracies where, sometimes, even elections are won or lost on the basis of health issues."

Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, on Friday criticized India's efforts to fight AIDS.

With more than 4.5 million people infected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, India has become the world's second largest hub of the disease -- but some of its states are "still in denial," Piot told the conference.

According to India Health Ministry estimates made public Friday, about 4.58 million people -- or about 0.8 percent of the country's adult population -- have the HIV virus, compared with 3.97 million cases last year.

A taboo in India on talking openly about sex has meant that sex education is not taught in schools, and people, especially women, are reluctant to seek treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

A U.S. government report predicted last year that the number of people with HIV/AIDS in India would rise to 20 million to 25 million by 2010. India's government criticized the report, saying it spread panic.