Amboli, a village in Gujarat’s Surat district, has been in news for a wrong reason. The villagers boycotted the flag-hoisting ceremony this Independence Day in the government-run school because of the presence there of twenty-two HIV-positive girls. While the school principal performed the ceremony with her 22 segregated students, most of the villagers celebrated the national festival somewhere else. The next day, in another place and another state, Panaji, Goa, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar himself shared a meal with HIV-positive children.
Kaga Bhushundi SpeakEth
Suman K Sharma
The two disparate incidents about HIV leave me confused. On the hand, there is such a scare of HIV that zestful villagers, forgetting their camaraderie on a national festival, shun the girls because of it; and on the other, a public figure takes time out of his busy schedule to sup with the children of an orphanage who have this condition.
‘Where is the scope of any confusion, son?’ said Kaga Bhushundi ji. ‘Human Immunodeficiency Virus’ or HIV as you call it, can lead to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) – a fatal, incurable disease. That’s the fear. The good news is that because it is only a virus, it cannot afflict a person unless it meets favourable conditions…’
‘Bas, bas. I know what those conditions are – having unprotected sex with an afflicted person and exposure to the infected body fluids or tissues. Infected mothers may also pass it on to their children.’
‘I am glad you keep yourself awake and alert to the HIV menace. But it is just one of the crores of viruses, of which your scientists have been able to describe only a handful thousand. They are on the prowl wherever life exists. But if you ask me, what is a virus but a speck of inert matter coated with a layer of very basic life-substance; a structure only half way through to being called a living organism. You could say it’s quite innocuous by itself. But, no, it poses a grave threat to life! It infests plants, birds, animals and even bacteria. In human beings viruses cause diseases ranging from the common cold, influenza, chicken pox to avian influenza, AIDS….’
‘And the dreadful Ebola that has erupted in West Africa and is giving the whole world cold shivers. But tell me, Kaga ji, how can such a dismal little particle cause havoc to life?’
‘It is something like this. A living body is made up of tiny cells, which go on replacing themselves with their own copies throughout its lifetime. But when a virus finds an opportunity to intrude into a living body, it transforms the system in such a way that the cells start replicating not themselves but the intruder. When this process goes on unchecked, as happens in Ebola and AIDS, it is a matter of time before the victim succumbs to the attack.’
‘Kaga ji, what I gather from you is that any virus is just a particle, neither fully alive, nor inert. But the moment it infests living tissue, it becomes toxic. Why have not our doctors been able to find an antidote to this poison?’
‘Son, ‘virus’ does stand for poison in Latin. As I have said, there are myriads of viruses, each with its own attributes and a marked tendency to mutate – change its form. You cannot therefore have one single magic formula to finish all of them. There are vaccines though to prevent certain diseases like small pox, but AIDS and Ebola viruses have defied man’s attempts so far to prevent them.’
‘That means we are always at the risk of catching any of those diseases.’
‘Risk is the other name for being alive, son. Caution is necessary; but panic, rather than solving a problem, adds to it. Ebola has dragged four abysmally poor countries – Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone – to yet more poverty. Fearing the contagion, farmers have fled their farms leaving ripe crop to rot, international companies are busy relocating their staff to ‘safer’ climes and it would be a rare tourist who musters courage enough to think of flying to this beautiful land of West Africa.’
‘Kagaji, frankly, I was expecting you would tell me what to do about viruses like HIV and Ebola.’
‘Sit down and relax. Do aalom-vilom! You already know the precautions you have to take against HIV. About Ebola you must remember that it spreads only through a sick person who is already showing its symptoms. Avoid the unlikely contact. Observe simple rules of washing your hands and maintaining proper cleanliness about and around you. That should suffice. And know that in time, all virus pandemics subside on their own; so too will Ebola. For prakriti, nature, does not give any of its creations too long a rope.
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