Disease is taking a toll on India’s paramilitary forces. Of 5,00,000 troopers, 1,22,700, or 25%, are ailing with hypertension, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and skin diseases.
Disease is taking a toll on India’s paramilitary forces. Of 5,00,000 troopers, 1,22,700, or 25%, are ailing with hypertension, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and skin diseases.
“Health problems are on the rise and affecting the performance and morale of the forces,” a home ministry official said. Particularly “puzzling” is the high number of HIV/AIDS cases, something typical of war zones but not peace postings.
“There are 1,300 cases of HIV/AIDS; we have lost more than 400 men to it and the problem is growing,” said the official.
“I can understand people getting HIV when they live in war-torn areas, but we have found cases among people who were stationed in Delhi. We can’t fathom why people who are allowed to stay with their families are getting infected.” He said the actual number of those infected could be more since the HIV test is optional.
A paramilitary officer said that for the government it is a Catch-22 situation because although contraceptives are distributed, their use is not officially promoted. “If we ask them to use contraceptives, it will go down as an official order. It would then become difficult to control the men, who might look around for partners outside the base areas,” he said.
“This would also make them vulnerable to terrorists and Maoists, who would soon come to know about the movements of security men. On the other hand, if we don’t ask them to use condoms, they run the risk of getting HIV,” the officer added.
HIV/AIDS is just the deadliest among the litany of health problems: 52,000 have skin disease, 27,000 hypertension and 7,000 diabetes. Hypertension and diabetes, in turn, are leading to cardiac ailments, of which there are 6,200 reported cases. An equal number of personnel have developed psychiatric problems because of tough working conditions, a lack of medical facilities — especially psychological support — and being away from their families.
The psychiatric problems have manifested in fragging (the term refers to attacking superiors and colleagues): 86 fratricides and 70 suicides were reported from 2006 to 2008. “We have a medical board to take care of these problems, but there is no denying that disease is bringing down the men,” the paramilitary officer said.
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