Dr Suniti Solomon, who detected India’s first HIV case, back in 1986, died on Tuesday morning after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 74. Coming into medical practice at a time when female doctors were few and far in between, Dr. Suniti was a pioneer in every aspect. She worked towards detecting and treating HIV patients in India, at a time when most doctors were actually afraid of treading down this path.
After a decade’s worth of training in pathology in USA, Britain and Australia, Dr. Suniti and her husband returned to India in 1973 to work at a government-run hospital. Armed with a MD in Microbiology, she began working as a professor in Madras Medical College (MMC). This was the time when she began reading up about HIV/AIDS and decided to track the virus in India.
“Those were the days when I was reading a lot of foreign journals on HIV and its effect in the U.S. In a quest to determine whether the virus was spreading here, my postgraduate student Nirmala and I identified a few female sex-workers lodged at the government home, on Kutchery Road, in Mylapore,” said Dr. Suniti in an interview with The Hindu.
Six blood samples that were tested positive were first sent to CMC Vellore and then Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, United States, for further confirmation. The confirmation sent shockwaves throughout the country and was even read out during an Legislative Assembly session.
At a time when physicians were actually afraid of HIV, Dr Solomon decided to pursue it full time. “When we detected the first few cases even doctors and health professionals were divided in their opinion. They did not want us to proceed. Even today the same attitude exists among hospitals and doctors who are reluctant to treat HIV+ people,” she said in an interview with DNA.
As the second step towards her new area of research, Dr. Suniti helped set up the Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre for HIV at the Institute of Microbiology in MMC. “I took an early retirement and started my organisation, in November 1993, with just three people. We did a lot of tough ground work. We had to erect huts in the Pondy Bazaar area and treat patients as no hospital came forward to admit HIV+ people,” recollects the doctor about her days of hardship.
“It was frightening really,” said Dr Solomon in an interview with Livemint, in 2009. “My husband was a little worried and didn’t want me to work with HIV+ patients, most of whom at that time were homosexuals, those who self-injected drugs and sex workers. And I said, look, you have to listen to their stories and you wouldn’t say the same thing.”
Today her non-profit organization, YR Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE), has ten times the weekly footfalls as in 1993 with more than 12,000 registered patients, reports Livemint.
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