A Tale of Two Indias
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13007825/site/newsweek/
On the cusp: The country stands on the brink of an Africa-style
disaster. But things may be turning around in the south.
By Jaya Shreedar, Daniel Pepper and Geoffrey Cowley
Newsweek International
June 5, 2006 issue - Thirty-five-year-old Rama Devi is not exactly an
icon of good fortune. She and her five children live in a dusty,
thatched-hut village called Kashiou, in the northern Indian state of
Uttar Pradesh. She once had a husband, a man who spent most of the year
selling fruit on the streets of Mumbai, but he contracted HIV during
his travels and came home a few years ago to die. Devi is now
HIV-positive herself. She works as a casual laborer in the wheat fields
around her village, receiving her daily pay in grain. But Devi's luck
could be worse. She happens to live within 20 kilometers of Allahabad,
where the Uttar Pradesh Network of Positive People runs a drop-in
center-and she has a brother who can spare a few precious rupees to
get her there each month for a free checkup, followed by a five-hour
bus ride to the nearest government treatment center. Nearly 800,000 of
India's 5.1 million HIV-positive people are now sick enough to need the
kind of medication that keeps Devi alive to feed her kids. She is among
the 10 percent who are getting it.
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