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I'm Gillian Woodward.
And I'm Patrick Woodward.
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India was dying.
A disease was spreading.
The more people got sick the less others wanted to help.
No one wanted to get the disease.
People died from it.
Some who were sick never told anyone.
They did not want to be avoided.
They did not want to lose their friends and family.
They died without getting treatment.
Other people with the disease tried to get help, but there were not enough doctors or the treatment was not good.
India was in trouble.
Someone had to do something.
Someone had to sacrifice.
Someone had to act, even if he did not have all the answers.
Today's spotlight looks at Nirikshana Asset.
Nirikshana means hope in the Indian language Telugu.
Asset means action, care, education and training.
Nirikshana is a medical clinic in Hyderabad, India.
The clinic treats patients with HIV, AIDS or leprosy.
HIV means human immunodeficiency virus.
It is a virus that attacks the human body's immune system.
The immune system defends the body against germs like bacteria and viruses that can cause diseases.
HIV and AIDS first appeared in the 20th century.
For many years, HIV was not recognised.
The first cases of AIDS were officially reported in the United States in 1981.
If a person with HIV does not get treatment, the virus can lead to AIDS.
AIDS means acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
It is a disease that weakens the body's defence against illness.
It is the most advanced stage of HIV infection.
People with AIDS who do not get proper treatment will die within one to three years.
Leprosy is a disease that affects the skin
It leaves red patches or areas on the skin called lesions.
Leprosy can weaken a person's muscles.
It can also cause a person to go blind.
Leprosy has been around for thousands of years.
Both leprosy and HIV are contagious.
This means they can spread from one person to another.
For many years, people were frightened of catching leprosy from someone who had it.
They were afraid of the strange lesions on the person's body.
They did not want to look that way.
When the first cases of HIV and AIDS were reported, people were scared.
They believed they could easily get the disease from someone.
AIDS killed many people.
It took years for doctors to discover proper treatment to stop the disease from getting worse in a person's body.
People did not want to be around someone with HIV or AIDS.
They did not want to get the disease and die.
In 2003, Dr Sujay Sunitha was the director of a leprosy research centre in Hyderabad.
His wife, Dr Luvanya Sunitha, was a scientist at the centre.
The doctors began seeing more patients with HIV at the leprosy centre.
These HIV-positive patients could not find help anywhere else.
Dr Sunitha also saw the number of his leprosy patients decrease.
He thought it was time to concentrate on HIV and AIDS patients.
One day, a mother and father brought their little baby girl to Dr Sunitha.
The parents and their daughter were all HIV positive.
Dr Sunitha said,
My heart was drawn to that child.
I carried her in my hand.
I felt that I needed to make that change from leprosy to caring for people with HIV.
Dr. Sanitha and his wife were both followers of Jesus.
They knew the Christian Bible teaches believers to help the sick and suffering.
They left the leprosy centre to start a clinic for people infected with HIV and AIDS.
They continued to treat leprosy patients.
But HIV and AIDS cases were reaching record numbers in India.
Millions of people were infected with HIV.
Over 100,000 Indians died each year from AIDS.
Many building owners in Hyderabad were willing to rent rooms to the Sunnithas for their clinic until they discovered it was for HIV and AIDS patients.
Then they said no.
Building owners did not want anything to do with HIV or AIDS.
For six months, the Sunithas looked for a place where they could open their clinic.
While searching, Dr Sunitha worked at medical camps all over Hyderabad, caring for HIV and AIDS patients.
Finally, his wife, Lavanya, suggested they open the clinic in the living room of their home until they found a building.
They used their sofa as a medical examination table.
They kept their medicines cool in their small refrigerator.
They named their clinic Niriksana Asset.
More patients began visiting the Sunitha's home.
Dr Sunitha treated 150 people in his living room each month.
Some of the children started asking their parents if they could eat with the Sunithas.
Soon the Sunithas were making lunch for all the patients.
They were sharing their plates and glasses with HIV and AIDS patients.
Dr Sunitha had always believed that these patients deserved proper medical treatment and care.
But it was not until he opened his home and shared meals with them that he looked at them in a new way.
Dr Sunitha said, That is how God taught us.
That is how we learned that these people are no different from us.
The Sunithas ran Nirikshana Asset in the living room of their home for a year.
Then a Christian organization helped them move the clinic upstairs to their guest room.
The Sunithas saw patients in their guest room for a year and a half.
Finally, a Christian minister from Korea visited the Sunithas.
The minister wanted to help them.
He found a building nearby that used to make audio cassettes.
It was full of old machinery and broken cassettes.
The minister told Dr Sunitha, This is the place you should move into.
And I will pay the rent for another two years.
The Sunnithas slowly cleaned up the rooms.
They saw more patients.
Nirikshana became popular in Hyderabad.
It was one of the only places where patients with HIV and AIDS could get quality treatment.
At the time, the Indian government did not have a good program to care for HIV positive patients.
Many doctors were still scared to treat HIV patients.
Before long, Niriksana Asset was helping 1,000 HIV-positive patients each month.
Dr. Sanitha and his workers offered each patient time with a doctor.
They offered counselling for HIV positive patients.
Other hospitals could not offer each patient this type of personal attention and time.
Dr Sunitha's treatment was effective.
He read that in studies in Africa, they had used a simple medication called cartramaxazole.
It was an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections.
By using cartromaxazole, Dr. Sunitha was able to prevent over 20 infections in an HIV-positive patient.
Also, the medicine was not expensive.
This medicine helped prevent many patients' illnesses from developing into AIDS.
It kept the disease in the HIV stage where it was manageable.
Nirigshana helped many women whose husbands had infected them with HIV and then left them.
The women were alone, sick and had no way of making money.
Workers at Niriksana Asset taught these women how to cook, make soap and sew.
They wanted the women to learn practical skills that they could use each day to live and make money.
The clinic also began helping families who could not pay to keep their children in school.
They provided enough money to pay the school fees.
Over the next 20 years, Nirakshana Asset helped at least 600 children receive an education.
One of the many women Nirikshana Asset helped was named Laxmi.
Her husband would not stop drinking alcohol.
He had HIV and gave it to Laxmi.
Their house was in very bad condition.
Her husband would not help her.
He later died of AIDS.
Lakshmi thought about selling her body to make money to support her three children.
She visited Nirikshana.
Dr. Sunitha treated her.
Lakshmi's health slowly improved.
Niriksana Asset's workers taught her how to sew.
They taught Lakshmi how to feed her family better food.
After several years, Lakshmi joined Niriksana Aset as a trainer.
She helped other women just as she had once been helped.
Niriksana Aset was also able to help Lakshmi's three children go to school.
The workers at the clinic were able to watch Laksmi's children grow up.
Two of the children went to school and became nurses.
The other child went to college and got a job in the financial industry.
For years, Nirikshana Asset fought through the worst of the HIV-AIDS crisis in India.
Slowly, people got better.
According to Anuja Juswal, Senior Assistant Editor at The Times of India, Nirikshana Asset and other clinics and hospitals around India are now winning the war against AIDS.
Juswal wrote,
AIDS-related deaths have dropped 81% since 2010.
This is one of the biggest drops globally.
New HIV infections have fallen by almost 49%.
This places India ahead of what is happening in the rest of the world.
The word Nirikshana means hope, but it is a special kind of hope.
It is the kind of hope that expects things to improve.
It is a confident hope.
For the Sunithas and their faithful workers at Nirikshana Asset, they offer this hope to their patients every day.
Their patients believe they will not die tomorrow.
They will be healthy.
They will live to see their children grow up.
Have you ever known someone with HIV, AIDS or leprosy?
Did you spend time with them?
Have you always felt comfortable around them or did it take time to adjust?
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All quotes were adapted for this episode and voiced by Spotlight.
No AI or artificial intelligence was used in this episode.
Spotlight episodes are written, voiced and produced by real people for real people, no matter where in the world they live.
This episode is called Nirikshana Asset, A Place of Confident Hope.
For the next Spotlight episode.
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