The first person to detect HIV infection in India

Thirty years ago, India first detected HIV in the country after testing blood samples from six prostitutes. This is due to the efforts of a young scientist, but so far, this pioneering work seems to have been forgotten.

At the end of 1985, when it was first proposed to carry out the project of screening HIV / AIDS-infected people, microbiology students at Chennai Medical University College of University of Singapore were hesitant. The idea was that of Professor Suniti Solomon , when Nirmala was looking for a topic for a graduate thesis.

AIDS cases have been detected in the United States since 1982, but Indian health authorities say the disease has not been able to go to India. At that time, the idea of ​​screening people with HIV / AIDS was considered "utopian". The press then wrote that HIV is a "Western depraved" disease . Some newspapers even predicted that by the time the disease reached India, Americans had found a way to cure it.

In addition, Chennai and the neighboring Tamil Nadu area are considered to be particularly traditional. Hundreds of blood samples collected from Mumbai city are much more modern, giving a negative result. Nirmala was reluctant to do this, but Dr. Solomon persuaded her to proceed.

Mrs. Nirmala (right) and Professor Solomon.(Photo: BBC).

Ms. Nirmala will collect 200 blood samples from high-risk groups such as prostitutes, gay men and African students. This job is not easy. Unlike Mumbai, New Delhi and Calcutta have a famous red light district, prostitutes in Chennai do not operate in a fixed place. So, she often goes to Madras Hospital, where women treat sexually transmitted diseases. Ms. Nirmala also went to detention houses, where prostitutes were detained if arrested. For more than 3 months, she collected more than 80 blood samples.

Dr. Solomon set up a small temporary laboratory and helped Mrs. Nirmala separate the serum from blood samples. To store blood, Ms. Nirmala had to keep them in her refrigerator. Since there was no testing facility in Chennai, Dr. Solomon sent blood samples to the Christian Medical University (CMC) laboratory in Vellore, 200 kilometers from Chennai. During the test, Nirmala and colleagues discovered 6 of the blood samples turned yellow - HIV positive.

Immediately, Ms. Nirmala returned to Chennai to collect blood samples from these 6 women again and send them to the United States for testing. All give a positive result. The deadly HIV virus news that actually arrived in India was transferred to the Medical Research Council and Rajiv Gandhi's Prime Minister. Authorities started the race to stop the disease. However, HIV-AIDS became a pandemic in India later. India currently has more than 2.1 million people infected with HIV.

In March 1987, after graduating, Nirmala joined the vaccine production program at the Chennai Preventive Medicine Institute until her retirement in 2010. 30 years later, a groundbreaking project helped confirm the event. The face of HIV-AIDS in India seems to have been forgotten. When asked if she ever felt inadequate when not recognized, Mrs. Nirmala said she was very happy to do something helpful to society.