For the past three years, the HIV/AIDS Task Force of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has been examining the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India, and particularly, U.S. policy dealing with that epidemic. A high-level delegation visited India in January 2004. Since then, a few elements of broad consensus on HIV/AIDS policy have emerged: that HIV/AIDS is one of the major question marks hanging over India's promising future; that changing the trajectory of the epidemic will require substantially more resources than are currently available; that, as in other countries, the response to HIV/AIDS cannot rely only on medical means and instruments but must include the social dimension as well; that India's size calls for a strategic approach from its central government and for a more widespread surveillance effort; and that India's decision to decentralize its HIV/AIDS program was a wise move and perhaps the only way to make room for tailor-made approaches that suit India's extraordinary diversity.

To read to whole report, please see Public Health and International Security: The Case of India.




Contributed by Pramit Mitra and Teresita C. Schaffer. Ms. Schaffer is an expert on issues relating to South Asia where most of her 30-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service was spent. Reprinted with permission from Center for Strategic and International Studies.

To read another Global Envision article about health issues in South Asia, see The Sovereignty of Disease.



Return to top