Under fire from gay rights groups and AIDS activists, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday sought to draw a line over the controversy surrounding his remarks on homosexuality, stressing he neither described gay sex as “unnatural” nor called it a “disease.”
Mr. Azad, in China to attend the first meeting of health ministers from the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — told reporters on Tuesday his remarks had been taken out of context, and were intended to bring focus to the challenges faced by the government in bringing down high infection rates among MSM (men who have sex with men).
In China, the Health Minister also drew attention to India’s “extraordinary work” in bringing down infection rates — a success, he said, only paralleled in two other BRICS nations, China and South Africa. “Other countries are still grappling with it, but these three countries have made big headway,” he said. “In our country, we have reduced it by 50 per cent, so far as new infections are concerned. We have not only reduced it, but we are continuing with our policy to reduce it further.”
He said India’s success stories were with regard to bringing infection rates down among female sex workers and the migrant population.
”What is worrying for us is we have not been able to reduce this number for MSM,” he said. “That is a cause for worry because their location and persons are not known. There is only an estimation that MSM are 400,000.”
Mr. Azad said he had referred to infection rates of HIV among MSM — and not the gay community — as a disease. He also said that it was not his view that homosexuality was “unnatural”.
“I said this disease is posing a great problem. I was naturally talking about the HIV disease, when the subject of the conference [in New Delhi] was HIV/AIDS, not MSM,” he said.
“Some activists thought by disease I meant homosexuality. They put superlatives as their own. I never used the word homosexuality, or gays, in my speech. I only used technical terms that the Health Ministry uses... The disease, I said, was HIV.”
Asked about his “unnatural” comment, he said: “There has been a long debate, for two years, in electronic and print media, with some people saying this is natural, some people saying this is not natural. I was not referring to my [opinion]. I said there has been a big debate in our country, in the media, that some people are saying natural, some people are saying unnatural.” Different views, he said, were not his concern. “My problem is how to reduce the infection rate,” he said.
Fight against HIV/AIDS
In talks this week, Mr. Azad, along with his counterparts from the BRICS countries, discussed how they can work together to make drugs more affordable in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
At this week’s meeting, which was also attended by officials from UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO), the BRICS countries called on developed countries to boost funding for both organisations.
The BRICS nations also agreed to stand together against moves by Western countries to tighten the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime, which they say will pose barriers to access to generic drugs in developing countries.
“Over a period of time, some multinationals and big companies have realised that… there are countries like India making affordable drugs, and these countries are supplying medicines across the globe,” Mr. Azad said. “So they [are looking to] incorporate some other ifs and buts that it will come in the way of countries like India who produce affordable drugs.”
In a speech to the BRICS health ministers’ meeting, Mr. Azad said cooperation among BRICS countries “opens significant opportunities of lobbying for and leveraging a global health agenda” for universal access to affordable health care.
“This is our strength and we must be cautious and guard against all strategic moves which impede local innovation and availability of affordable medicines,” he said. “IPR barriers, including patents and data exclusivity, cause delays in generic competition in the market which is one of the most efficient ways to bring prices down.”
