Back from the dead: the Myanmese HIV victims finding hope in India

South China Morning Post: 08 December, 2006

Woman's remarkable survival inspires fellow sufferers to sneak into India for treatment, writes Shaikh Azizur Rahman

When 24-year-old Myanmese Mary Lun was carried across the border and into the Aids hospice of Churachandpur in northeast India in March, she weighed a mere 24kg and was all but dead.

Infected with HIV by one of her two former husbands or a boyfriend, Ms Lun was also wracked with tubercu-losis and too weak to even cough. Few who saw her thought she would come out of the hospice alive.

Yet, less than five months later, she astonished her friends by walking out with a smile, her weight a healthy 60kg.

Her amazing recovery has highlighted the situation of Myanmar's HIV patients, who are either sneaking across the border into India's Manipur state to receive the life-saving treatments that are either inaccessible or unaffordable in Myanmar. India-based NGOs are helping provide their illicit treatment by supplying them with fake addresses - and even helping some resettle in India permanently.

"She was nothing but a bundle of bones and skin when I saw her first in our hospice bed," said Biakdiki Chhakchhuak, a doctor in charge of the hospice run by the NGO Shalom.

Shalom director P. Vanlalmuana said Ms Lun's recovery was nothing short of spectacular. "Now she weighs 60kg and her CD4 [blood cell] count has gone up to 240 [from just 20]. She is quite healthy now. Her recov-ery is a classic example of how antiretroviral therapy and other drugs can help a dying Aids victim regain health and save one from the brink of an immediate death," said Dr Vanlalmuana, describing her case at a seminar in August.

Manipur-based Myanmese doctor and activist Aung Kyaw Oo believes there are thousands of HIV/Aids pa-tients in Myanmar's Kachin and Chin states whose only hope of receiving modern antiretroviral drugs lies in sneaking over the border to India, where charities provide free treatment.

"Because of ever-increasing restrictions by the military junta [in Myanmar], the chances of international medical aid agencies reaching those infected people in frontier areas are getting dimmer," said Aung Kyaw Oo. "But agencies from India can provide the key medical aid, including antiretrovirals.

"With at least 7 per cent of the region's population being infected with HIV and less than 0.5 per cent of the Aids victims having access to antiretrovirals, the care and treatment situation is in fact grimmer than in many African countries."

When news of Ms Lun's recovery reached friends also infected with HIV in her home town of Khampat, some travelled across the border to see her in the flesh and confirm her condition with their own eyes.

"Earlier this year she was so sick and bed-ridden that we thought she would die within a few weeks. We have seen many young people dying in the same situation in our area. It is a miracle to find her so healthy and young today," said Lalramshami Ngente, 27.

"If the [health] activists did not bring her down to Manipur she would have been inside a grave in Burma now. She is really lucky."

Sangpuii Ralte, a 29-year-old friend, said "99 per cent" of those infected with HIV in her home district of Tamu were unable to afford "long life" antiretroviral drugs in Myanmar, and neither the government nor NGOs there could provide them free.

"Recently I fell sick with diarrhoea and I had to spend my life's savings of 10 million kyat [HK$12,600] for my treatment at a private hospital in Khampat. Since I was HIV-positive, government doctors in Khampat said they had no infrastructure to treat me," said Ms Sangpuii.

Her 32-year-old husband Mawia, who is also HIV-positive, said: "If you are not among that 5 per cent of the rich and if you get HIV, you will have to die."

With Mawia losing weight fast, the couple decided after seeing Ms Lun that they could not afford to delay joining her in India for illicit treatment. They got in touch with a group of health workers, who agreed to help them get the treatment they so desperately sought, even though they are Myanmese.

"We sold our house in Burma and settled in India [in Churachandpur] two months ago," said Ms Sangpuii. "The NGO helped us get a house to rent. It even helped my husband open a small fish shop which he can manage without much physical strain," said Ms Sangpuii who now weaves shawls to supplement the family's income.

"Mawia had been getting weaker, and sometimes fell sick. He could not work hard in the fields in Myanmar and our family income was declining. We had no money for his medical treatment there. When we found that no money would be needed for our treatment in India, we emigrated."

The high incidence of HIV among Manipur drug users means that the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres and the government provide free antiretroviral drug treatment for about 400 patients. Since October, Mawia and Sangpuii Ralte have been among them.

 A counsellor for the NGO which helped Mawia and Sangpuii said she and her colleagues had helped 40 HIV-infected Myanmese enrol for free treatment in India since May.

"Only about five HIV/Aids victims have settled here. Since we have not been able to bring the remaining people here [permanently] they are now shuttling between Sagaing and Manipur to collect their medicine every month. Within a few months we hope to succeed to bring all of them here," said the counsellor, who did not want to identify the charity. "For obvious reasons all of those individuals have been registered using fake Indian addresses."

The deception is helping save lives, including Ms Lun's. "I have been blessed with a second life. I never knew that medicine could be so powerful - or that it came free of charge."