Health: India plans HIV safe zones

Reuters reports that India is to create high-risk migration corridors and create safe spaces in cities where migrant workers congregate to protect them from the HIV virus.

About five per cent, or 12-15 million people who travel from their villages to high HIV-prevalence cities and back over short periods, will be a major focus in a new plan against Aids, said Sujatha Rao, Director-General of the state-run National Aids Control Organisation (Naco).

“These migrants tend to cluster. What we will try to do is to insulate them from the infection even if they stay in a high-prevalence district,” Rao said. She said the government plans to track migrant concentrations in cities and protect workers through peer education, setting up HIV-testing centres and intensive condom distribution.

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