Nov. 30: Hoardings, radio capsule, print advertisement, live entertainment, seminars and workshops, celebrity endorsement — the state appeared to be in a tizzy on the eve of World AIDS day. Flush with funds, government and non-government agencies have gone berserk with a high-decibel hype over HIV/AIDS awareness campaign.

Without creating much difference, it would seem. The Jharkhand State AIDS Control Society (JSACS) at Giridih claims to have detected 40 positive cases during the last one year after testing just 200 people.

Rekha Jha, a spokesperson with JSACS, reports three suspected deaths in the district due to HIV but laments that villagers are simply not aware of the disease.

Her claim is endorsed by Rachana Sharma of the Voluntary Confidential Counselling and Testing Centre (VCCTC), also at Giridih. Cases of HIV are being reported from all the 12 blocks in the district, she claims. Large number of poor villagers are migrating to metros in search of work, she says, and are contracting the dreaded disease there. But there is little awareness among the villagers, she adds.

Says a sarcastic pharmacist in Ranchi: “ Rather than spend money on such star-spangled campaigns and getting thousands of school children to light two candles each, the money should be spent in the rural areas.”

Even the IMA secretary, A.K. Singh, finds the government’s approach “ostrich-like”. When a government doctor reported incidence of AIDS from a small hamlet, Bishnugarh on the GT Road, Singh claimed, the doctor was actually punished with a transfer for allegedly raising the alarm.

The same kind of callousness is evident in other bodies like the State Blood Transfusion Committee. It was constituted at the beginning of the year but the committee met for the first time in October, 10 months after it was set up.

Its brief was to inspect blood banks and ensure that steps are being taken for proper tests and storage. But the committee has not visited any blood bank, although blood banks are where the virus is detected and, if left undetected, also where the virus can infect the healthy.

JSACS officials, however, claim that the higher number of people being tested positive is all due to the success of the awareness campaigns. More people, they say, are volunteering for blood tests. But the JSACS figures unfortunately do not seem to carry much conviction with other medical practioners in the state.

Finally, there are sections which say the state is ignoring “poor men’s diseases” like tuberculosis while promoting AIDS awareness. TB takes a toll of 4 lakh people in the country every year and the figure in the mining state of Jharkhand must also be high. But there is no hype or hoopla associated with the respiratory disease.