JNUinfo

MEDICAL EXAMINATION and AIDS INFORMATION

The Admission Branch will give you a slip for the Health Centre (8am-2pm; 4-6pm) or go straight and show your admission letter; pay INR 5 for a registration card; the doctor will give you a list of tests to do (X-rays have to be done outside JNU, refusal is possible); you will undergo a check up including a urine test and a blood test, so try to be early (queue!). Get your Medical Booklet by showing your I-card and giving one photograph (to renew, your I-card is enough) in room 4.

The blood analysis costs INR 360, but is free for full time students. Ask for a receipt.

Bring the certificate "Health Record" of the medical check up to the Admission Branch Room 20.

There is only a medical test upon your first admission, later re-registration does not require a medical check up.

WHAT IS AIDS AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT?

It is important to give support to people living with HIV/AIDS (see 'abbreviations') as many HIV+ (positive) people's lives are destroyed because of stigma and discrimination long before they develop the disease.

HIV causes AIDS. HIV is a virus that attacks and breaks down the body’s defence system against infections, but it may stay hidden up to 10 years during which it can be passed on to others. AIDS is a life threatening disease.

HIV is spread by:

all kinds of sex without the use of a condom: vaginal, anal or oral - unprotected vaginal and anal intercourse are the main routes of sexual transmission (oral sex is only carrying a very low risk of transmission);

blood (products) transfusion;

the use of infected needles;

passed on from a pregnant mother to her baby.

HIV does NOT spread by:

touching or living with infected people;

sharing glasses, plates or utensils with infected persons;

insect bites;

sharing toilets, soap, towels or clothes.

THERE IS NO CURE FOR AIDS but you can prevent it:

if you have sex, always use a condom correctly;

use only safe disposable needles;

use only HIV tested blood.

An HIV/AIDS test can only reveal the virus some three months after you were infected.

For more information or questions, visit www.aids.org or members.tripod.com/gaydelhi/Page200.htm or contact the Naz Foundation (India) Trust, D-45, Gulmohar Park, New Delhi-110049, tel.: 26567049 / 26563929.

For general information on the HIV-situation in India, see: youandaids.org/Asia%20Pacific%20at%20a%20Glance/India/index.asp#HIVSituation

If you want to take an HIV-test, they will draw your blood (carry syringes or ask for disposable ones) in AIIMS hospital where you collect the ELISA-test result. The whole procedure is for free. You can also go to a private doctor off campus for the HIV test but this is expensive.

An HIV test is NO LONGER necessary to get registered in JNU.

HEALTH

Some of the health risks of a long term stay:

Contamination of water (pipes):

when the water looks and smells foul, it cannot be purified at home, not even by boiling it.

Causes of contamination include sewage enters into broken pipes, rusted pipes, blocked drains cause backflow.

Water-borne diseases: Typhoid fever, Hepatitis A, Jaundice, Poliomyelitis, diarrhea, dysentery, worms.

Pollution: cause of allergies, disease and death

water (see above)

air (see text on traffic)

noise (see text on planes flying over JNU)