CHURACHANDPUR: Doctors are sounding the alarm on a growing number of children being orphaned by the increasing menace of AIDS in India's far-flung northeast.
High intravenous drug use in which needles are shared -a common route for HIV/AIDS transmission-as made authorities declare Manipur and the other six states in the scenic and verdant northeast high-risk zones.
"HIV/AIDS has assumed frightening proportions with the number of orphaned children shooting up," P. Vanlalmuana, a doctor who heads the Society for HIV/AIDS and Lifeline Operation or SHALOM, a community health group in Manipur.
So far, he says, there is little provision for caring for the children who are being looked after by other relatives such as grandparents.
The Manipur government is working to stop mother-to-child transmission through testing and drugs but says it has yet to come up with any concrete plans to assist children orphaned by AIDS.
"More than promiscuity it's the sharing of needles among intravenous drug users in the northeast that's responsible for spreading HIV/AIDS at an alarming rate," S.I. Ahmed, a frontline anti-AIDS campaigner in the region, said.
India has about 5.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS, second only to the number in South Africa. The problem is particularly acute in the northeast which lies on the edge of the heroin-producing "Golden Triangle" of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.
Officials say rampant unemployment in the northeast whose population totals 39 million people has prompted many idle young people to take up drug use.
Independent estimates have put the number of intravenous drug users in the seven states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura region at around 300,000.
Nearly one in three of them are believed to be infected with HIV/AIDS.