Mumbai:
This week, a 31-year-old MBA graduate will exchange marital vows with a 32-year-old widow, who holds an MA. But what sets this marriage apart is the fact that the couple is HIV positive. It is also the would-be groom's first marriage.
The couple has in fact received the consent and blessings of both families.
This has been made possible by an AIDS research centre close to Kamathipura, Mumbai's oldest red light area, which is helping HIV positive patients find a new life.
Till date, the 15-year-old Unison Medicare and Research Centre, the city's first AIDS clinic, has helped 12 HIV positive couples consider matrimony. "Earlier, patients believed that being HIV positive was a death sentence.
They weren't aware that AIDS victims have a lifespan of at least 25 years from the time they are infected.
They can lead a productive life and even hope for a HIV-negative child because mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) can now be prevented," says Dr I S Gilada, Managing Director of UNISON Medicare & Research Centre and consultant in HIV Medicine. Dr Gilada adds that Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) medicines add 15 years to a patient's lifespan.
Over the past 13 years, patients from all walks of life and professions including doctors, engineers and industrialists, who have considered remarriage and life after AIDS, have approached Dr Gilada. "They consult us first because it's difficult to establish trust. In some cases, they live together and marry when they've understood each other better. In fact, we are in the midst of processing the marriage of a Hyderabad-based doctor," says Dr Gilada.
On an average, at least two couples approach the clinic for marriage counselling. "Seventy per cent of the couples who approach us are from outside Mumbai," says Dr Gilada. Currently, 1.5 per cent of Mumbai's total population is HIV positive -- 60 per cent of HIV patients are male, 38 per cent are female, while two per cent are children. Sangli is the most affected district in Maharashtra with 3.5 per cent of its total population being HIV positive. "Most HIV positive women in Mumbai are sex workers. Most males have good jobs and earn well, and therefore don't want to marry sex workers. So it is difficult for us to find a proper partner for anyone." The first marriage aided by the centre, between an engineer and a BSC student, was solemnised 13 years ago.