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Report uncovers sex-for-medicine scandal in India

HIV-positive women in the northern Indian state of Punjab were forced by technicians at a medical institute to have sex in return for tests and medicines, a report said yesterday.

Police were investigating the allegations against employees of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in state capital Chandigarh, the Times of India said.

The women who complained of abuse were mainly young patients from city slums.

"I was helped by a technician there. He provided me medicines and other testing facilities without any problem," an HIV positive woman told the paper. "But this was all for his sexual gratification."

She also said that she was asked to procure girls for workers at the institute's AIDS testing and counselling center.

Discrimination against HIV-positive people is widespread in India, where an estimated 2.5 million people are infected with the virus, according to the UN.

The number of estimated AIDS cases in India fell this year from estimates of 5.7 million in 2005, reflecting an increase in testing and better statistical sampling methods, the UN said.
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