Wednesday that over 19 young people in Nainital, Uttarakhand, have tested positive for HIV or AIDS following sex with a 17-year-old girl. Allegedly, the heroin addict girl had sex with the young males who provided the funding for her addiction.
A district health officer was cited as saying, “We are taking urgent action because this is a troubling pattern.” “This tragic circumstance was caused by the girl’s addiction, and we are striving to provide counseling and support,” he continued.
Why is it alarming?
When the young people in Ramnagar, Nainital, started to become ill and hospital testing verified their HIV diagnoses, the outbreak was discovered. Due to severe health issues, young men began going to the Ramdatt Joshi Joint Hospital’s Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre (ICTC). Numerous people tested positive for HIV, which prompted an inquiry that revealed a common link between the cases. The teen allegedly had sex with local youths who were ignorant of her HIV status in an attempt to raise money to feed her addiction.
Nainital’s chief medical officer Harish Chandra Pant, expressed concern over a sudden spike in HIV cases in the region.
Pant said, “Typically, around 20 HIV-positive cases are detected annually. However, within just five months this year, 19 new cases have been reported.”
Pant added that authorities are taking the incident seriously and have started counselling services in different areas to tackle the issue. He said the sudden rise in HIV cases is concerning, particularly given the typical annual figures, noting that the district health department is focused on providing support and education to the affected communities.
A senior health department source told the newspaper that in the last 17 months, 45 persons in Ramnagar have tested positive for HIV, raising alarms among health officials. “As youths began falling ill, hospital tests confirmed they were HIV positive,” the unnamed official said.
“What’s even more disturbing is that several of these individuals were married, and their spouses have also contracted the disease,” he said. “This is a wake-up call for our community,” the medical officer said. “These young men had no idea they were exposed to HIV through the same 17-year-old girl,” TNIE quoted a counsellor as saying.
“During counselling sessions, we discovered that they all had physical relationships with her, unaware of her smack addiction,” the counsellor said. “The girl, struggling with addiction, engaged in these relationships to fund her habit. Unfortunately, the youths became easy prey,” the counsellor added.
