It may be recalled that as many as 32 patients had reportedly died due to AIDS in Yerawada between 2001 and 2006. This matter had been put before the High Court during the hearing of a bail application of another HIV positive prisoner serving a life sentence at Yerawada.

While the application was rejected last year, the issue came under the court’s scrutiny. The HC later followed it up with the order for a voluntary counselling and testing project to start in all the state-owned central prisons covering the 7,000-odd prisoners to check the spread of HIV.

Pune and Amravati were the first to start with the project in October 2008. Last week this was extended to prisons of Aurangabad, Nashik and Thane as well.

There are over 3,300 prisoners in Yerawada jail. If the first lot is a representative sample of what is to come, the prospects of a large number of prisoners at Yerawada turning out to be HIV positive cannot be ruled out.

Following the High Court intervention, the state government issued an order last year for initiating voluntary counselling and HIV testing for prisoners in Amravati and Pune prisons. The pilot project started in Yerawada on October 2 and is being conducted by the Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS).

Disclosing the details of the test, Sachin Pawar, district supervisor of MSACS, said all 13 who were found to be HIV positive prisoners are being given treatment at Sassoon General Hospital.

“Only two of these had low CD 4 count and so need to be given anti-retroviral therapy. This has already started for one of them and the other will follow soon,” said Pawar. Jail superintendent Rajendra Dhamane has called the pilot a big success . “The main thing is this is purely a voluntary initiative. The prisoners have to come forward on their own. Many still have reservations. Some refuse to even acknowledge there is a possibility of them being HIV positive and refuse to be tested. But efforts are on to persuade them to undergo these tests,” Dhamane said.