NEW DELHI, June 21: ``No one is willing to marry our girls and boys now. Wherever we go, people tell us we are the AIDS village. The future of our youth is ruined.'' The speaker is the former sarpanch of Chochi village in Haryana, where panic has spread following media reports that more than 70 people believed to be HIV positive there.

According to a non-governmental organisation (NGO), whose team visited Chochi, the government's target-oriented approach towards HIV-AIDS (focussing on truck drivers and prostitutes) is causing social chaos.

Purshothaman Mullolli of the Joint Action Committee Kannur (JACK) said at a Press conference yesterday that when a disease was widespread, difficult to contain and incurable, only a target-free approach would work.

The government had failed to consider the social effect of such a concentration of attention on sections which were poor and vulnerable. It also lulled other sections into complacency in the erroneous belief that they are not at risk from HIV-AIDS, he pointed out.

A truck driver from Chochi, Ranbir Singh, was reported to have died of AIDS. Adding to the scare were reports that the local doctor had used the same syringe to treat Ranbir Singh and several other people. The news made headlines in sections of the Press and electronic media. ``The result has been complete ostracism of Singh's family and the whole village. They are suffering because of the muddleheaded and shortsighted policies of NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation) and disinformation spread by the Press,'' Mulloli said.

He said further that the Rohtak Medical College (which was reported to have declared Singh HIV positive) did not have the necessary equipment to conduct HIV tests.

Singh was admitted to Rohtak Medical College on April 24; the next day he was discharged and referred to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for further treatment; on April 26, he died. Mulloli pointed out that it takes 15 days for HIV test results to come, implying that there could be no conclusive proof that Singh had HIV.

Ranbir Singh's widow, who was also present, said that her whole family was being stigmatised now. She has been tested for HIV but the report has not come in yet, but already she is being termed to be HIV positive.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.