Kohima, April 7 (MExN): Anand Grover, an eminent lawyer and also the Project Director of “Lawyers Collective for HIV/AIDS” based in Mumbai stressed the need to empower the ‘vulnerable groups’ through the creation of an enabling environment by adopting the integrationist principle in approach and policy so as to effectively combat and prevent the further spread of HIV in our society.
He was speaking as resource person and facilitator at a day long interactive Workshop on “HIV/AIDS and Law, Ensuring access to treatment and care” organized by the Nagaland AIDS Control Society (NSACS) at Hotel Japfii Ashok Today. While replying to queries, Grover breezed through the medical technicalities of HIV/AIDS, issues of discrimination, confidentiality and the effects of patent laws on the cost of drugs and access to them.
As the other resource person and facilitator, Dr. Tokugha Yepthomi presented a talk on ‘Access to treatment and care for HIV/AIDS’. Now a reputed specialist in the field of HIV/AIDS and related treatment, this visit was Tokugha’s first since some years when he was forced to leave Nagaland because of his HIV+ status. While rubbishing the various misconceptions attached to a HIV+ individual, Yepthomi clinically dwelled upon the various progression/regression stages of HIV, treatment and best care methods, and various medicines and their combinations that can prolong the life of an HIV+ individual. The workshop saw the participation of individuals from Various NGOs, NSACS, and Lawyers Network for HIV/AIDS.
Grover and Yepthomi accompanied by Indrani Jai Singh, a lawyer of the Supreme Court, and two from Poona and Mumbai doing a documentary on the life of Dr Yepthomi, arrived Nagaland yesterday.
