TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Saying that the Rivona schoolchildren incident should open our eyes, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said that we should not try to vilify and stigmatise people who are unfortunate enough to have contracted HIV as there is no guarantee who can contract it.
“Let us wipe off this unnecessary stigma. Let us not become a regressive society. How
can Goan parents behave like this? That was my question,” he said while speaking at the Legislative Forum on HIV/AIDS organized by Goa State AIDS Control Society and Goa Legislative Assembly at Assembly Complex, Porvorim, Friday.
“What is the guarantee that the other students don’t get it? What is the guarantee that the child of protesting parents do not have it? Tomorrow if that happens, blame will not be that of child but of parents,” Parikar said.
The chief minister said that is the reason why he was ready to share food with HIV students, because that was not the way it spreads. “Who knows, what happens when we go to restaurants. Do you know who comes there and whether they have AIDS certificates (written) on their foreheads?” he asked.
Health Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said that from 2009 fresh detections of HIV cases has started reducing and last year fresh detection number was only 523. “This year we hope to reduce it further… There are around 14,000 living HIV infected persons in Goa. This has to be brought down to zero,” he said. Parsekar expressed confidence that in five years, the number could be brought down to zero at the rate at which the graph is coming down.
