Sex workers and victims of trafficking are at great risk of contracting HIV/AIDS

when normal people get colds and fever, a PLHA becomes more prone to these. They are also very vulnerable to diarrhoea, TB and herpes. These other diseases cause infections in the person’s body and sores start appearing in different parts of the body. These things start happening once or twice a year and the frequency starts increasing. The CD4 T cells (known as Helper T cells which are the “middlemen” of the adaptive immune system) in the person’s body starts going down. A healthy person has about 1000 to 1400 T cells; a child has more. Once an AIDS patient’s T cell goes below 200, the frequency of infections start getting higher.

At this point the patient has to start taking Anti Recto Viral (ARV) therapy. The ARV gives the immune system a boost by suppressing the virus. The AIDS virus (HIV) has a certain growth cycle, the ARVs intervene and try to control and suppress this growth cycle. But it has to be taken for life. BEXIMCO Pharmaceuticals was the only company producing this medicine and SQUARE Pharmaceuticals has only recently launched it on the market. But the medicines are very expensive to produce. It costs about Tk 3,700 per month. A person unfortunately slowly starts growing a resistance to this medicine at some point. Then he/she has to start taking the second line of ARV, which is not available in our country. It costs Tk 15,000 to 20,000 per month in India. Dutch Bangla Bank is sponsoring the ARV medicines for 33 people and ActionAid Bangladesh is providing it for a further 10 people under AAS.

ARV medicines are too expensive for an unemployed PLHA to afford.

Akter is very disappointed with the government’s slow response to providing care and support for PLHAs. “The government is currently spending a lot of money on awareness raising but since care and support is so expensive and the number of PLHAs are not that high [compared to other countries], they are not giving priority to it,” says Akter, “HIV positive patients have to face a lot of problems that other patients don’t have to. They are not so easily admitted to any public hospital. The only facilities available on the seventh floor of the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Mohakhali is just a farce. Patients in whatever condition have to climb up all by themselves and then are not even treated properly.”

AIDS patients are even discriminated against by the doctors and nurses there. The nurses there allegedly refuse to serve PLHAs and the patients are forced either to inject themselves or take a nurse along with them. Many PLHAs refuse to get treated simply because of the hate and discrimination they have to face at these public hospitals and private treatment is too expensive. “Of course the situation has changed much since the first identified HIV positive patients in the country were locked up in jail in 1988. But still many families refuse to support their loved ones especially at the last stages they refuse to stay by their side,” says Akter. Many people in the country are still under the impression that the AIDS virus can be spread from one person to another by sharing cups and plates and shaking hands.

Sex workers and victims of trafficking are at great risk of contracting HIV/AIDS

In his own words 37-year-old Parvez (not his real name) was a poor man’s son who was full of hopes and dreams about going abroad. After getting visa to go to Saudi in 2004, he found out he was HIV positive when he went for a regular medical check-up in a hospital in Banani. Although he was extremely depressed, things changed for him when he came to Ashar Alo Society after being referred by someone. “After I came here and talked to everyone, whatever fear and helplessness I had went away immediately,” says Parvez, “I feel really happy after coming here. I