Confirming launch, this year, additional director general of the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) J V R Prasada Rao said institutes are already being identified for the trials in Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Pondicherry, and the states of Manipur and Kerala.

AZT is useless as a cure because of the rapidity with which HIV develops resistance to it. But the drug can temporarily reduce viral load in the mother's blood, giving the newborn a chance to come into the world uninfected.

"It is criminal to use AZT as a cure for HIV because it could lead to rapid development of multi-drug resistant strains," said Dr Durgadas Dasgupta, consultant at NACO and one of India's foremost experts on the virus which causes AIDS.

AZT causes several undesirable side-effects, which make exposure of the foetus and the newborn to thedrug somewhat risky.

Putting the newborn on AZT reduces its chances of HIV transmission through breast milk by about fifty per cent, Dasgupta said. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which will monitor the AZT trials, recently brought out a complete set of guidelines for the testing of the drug in this country.

Results of trials on AZT already conducted in several countries and released at the 12th world conference on HIV/AIDS at Geneva last month indicate that benefits far outweigh the risks especially when combined with Caesarean deliveries.

However, activists have sounded caution. "The experience with trials of other imported drugs have not been encouraging -- we don't want this to be another case of third world women ending up as guinea pigs for multi-national drug companies," said Brinda Karat, general secretary of the All-India Democratic Women's Association.

Mira Shiva, a doctor who is a well-known advocate of rational drug-use and member of the Voluntary Health Association of India(VHAI) said several ayurvedic drugs are known to have the effect of reducing the viral load in HIV patients in a more natural and safe way.

Rigorous tests conducted at a laboratory in Pune have shown that an ayurvedic drug popularised by Dr T A Majeed drastically reduces viral loads of HIV patients to a point where they show HIV-negative on the commonly available P24 antigen test.

Convener of the Joint Action Council, Kannur (JACK) Purushottaman Mulloli said the drug should not be introduced into this country simply because the programme is being funded by the World Bank which has just released an additional 200 million dollars to NACO.

Mulloli warned that several multi-national drug companies which specialise in the rather expensive anti-HIV drugs were anxious to penetrate the Indian market and maximise their profits.

According to NACO, costs to a pregnant woman who has to take AZT through the last trimester would be less than Rs 10,000 -- but that could put it out of the reach of many from thepoorer sections, especially if they have to pay for Caesareans as well.

Shiva thinks that the vast funds being made available by the World Bank to fight Aids in India -- which could go all the way up to 800 million dollars-- would be better spent tackling poverty which drives many women to prostitution in the first place.

But what Shiva, Karat and Mulloli find most objectionable is unaccountability. "In the past when imported drugs have failed, authorities have attributed it to genetic differences in the Indian population," Shiva said.