46% of rural women in India don’t know about AIDS/HIV.

As health educators expand their focus in India, only 56% of all women know about HIV/AIDS in contrast to 80% of men.

The Indian government has focused its HIV/AIDS prevention efforts on high-risk groups, such as commercial sex workers and injection drug users, rather than on the general population, according to Reuters. An unnamed government official said that the government is “expanding prevention efforts among the general population in rural areas, especially women, over the next five years.” Anjali Gopalan — head of the HIV/AIDS advocacy group Naz Foundation India — said the report “shows women don’t have access to information, translating into more women getting infected.” According to Reuters, women account for 40% of HIV cases in the country. Many women in rural areas contract the virus from their husbands, who travel to cities and visit commercial sex workers, Reuters reports. HIV/AIDS advocates are urging the government to train health workers and send them to rural areas in an effort to educate rural women about the virus (Zaheer, Reuters, 2/23).

via Kaiser Network.
Now my girl Neela just got back from India and was mentioning that she noticed much of the education about HIV/AIDS is targeted to poor people. So the question is how much of this education is reaching the middle class or is HIV/AIDS being seen in India as something only affecting marginal, disenfranchised or “high-risk” populations?