AIDS threat emerging in Indian 'call center Romeos' (Agencies) Updated: 2008-06-22 15:36 KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- A new AIDS threat is rising in India's numerous call centers, where young staff are increasingly having unprotected sex with multiple partners in affairs developed during night shifts, a top AIDS expert has warned. While India has made great strides in bringing down its HIV infection rate, the promiscuity among "call center Romeos" is a great concern, Dr. Suniti Solomon, who detected the first HIV case in India in 1986, told an international medical conference Saturday. The United Nations, however, still estimates there are some 2.5 million Indians living with HIV and AIDS now. "India has reached a plateau of the infections," Solomon told the International Congress on Infectious Diseases, which ends Sunday. Her concern now is the call centers, where many of the young staff work at night to correspond with the daytime working hours of their American and European clients. "They have all the money. They huddle together in the night. They are young, they are sexually active, so naturally they start," Solomon, who runs an AIDS center in the southern city of Chennai, told The Associated Press in a separate interview. She said at least three or four call center workers visit her clinic every week to get tested for HIV because they are worried after having unprotected sex. It is estimated that India's call centers employ some 1.3 million people, mostly youths fresh out of school and colleges, earning a starting salary of 25,000 rupees (US$600) a month, more than a government doctor's paycheck. "You will see call center Romeos are a major high risk for HIV," Solomon said. There are no figures for how many call center workers are infected with HIV. Citing confessions by the visitors to her center, Solomon said groups of young men and women rent apartments along the beach during the weekends and end up having multiple-partner sex. "If they are having sex just among themselves, and all are non-infected it is fine. But if there is one person who has gone out of this group and brought in the virus, it will spread to everyone," she said. While the "call center Romeo" situation is a reflection of recent liberal values, India's anti-AIDS fight is also hampered by society's coexisting conservatism, Solomon told the conference. She said this is evident in Hindu activists' opposition to circumcision -- which is proven to help inhibit HIV transmission -- on the grounds that it is against tradition and religion of Hindu-majority India. Solomon said she does not expect India to accept circumcision for preventing HIV infections. A recent government study to gauge the acceptance for circumcision triggered a massive backlash by Hindu fundamentalists, who called it "obnoxious" and "a conspiracy." "If you go out into the streets and say I will do this (circumcision) to reduce HIV, there will be a chaos," she said. "Vaccines have failed. Microbicides have failed. This is one tool we have in hand but we can't use it."
STDs - 6 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Islam is a religion, it is not a solution to anything, especially when so many practitioners are confused about the basic tenets of the faith. HIV-AIDS is a behaviorally driven disease. What you do and how you live your life generally exposes you to the disease. No religion is going to stop that. Education is the best (and only) "solution for humanity."
2 :
Am I to assume that the belief that circumcision reduces HIV transmission, and most Muslims are circumcised, so that is why it is best? What about Jews? They require circumcision, and it is more a required there than under the Muslim religion. So would Judaism be the best solution for humanity? What about being American, a lot of them circumcise. But they are the most circumcised industrialized nation, and have the highest AIDS infection rate amoung industrialized nations.
3 :
Yes you are 100% right that ISLAM is the only solution for many of the present day havocs. Islam is the religion of peace and humanity. It is the only religion in the world where it gives you the complete way of life. Where you can find the solution for everything. All what we hear against Islam is the western propaganda to suppress the muslims. They want to occupy the muslims land and steal their resources. What some foreign agents in the name of muslims are doing in the world are not to be put in the account of Islam. Go and google for example 9/11, you will find the facts.
4 :
PLEASE! Religion has nothing to do with AIDS. Any person of any race or religion can spread AIDS. USE condoms and practice safe sex or absitinance is the only way to be safer. Do you think if everyone revertid to islam, AIDS would be gone or managed? Dont be stupid!
5 :
NO
6 :
Islam is only a cure for sanity really LOL sorry
