MUMBAI, India — Subash and Vimal Barve live in a 200-square-foot shack deep in the slums of Ghatkopar East, a suburb of Mumbai. Outside their home, rats run over broken cement slabs and children pick through a fly-infested dump that ends at the couple’s doorstep. Inside, Vimal prepares a pot of chai as Subash, blind and HIV positive, stares straight ahead.
Life wasn’t always this hard.
A decade ago, the couple lived a middle-class life. They owned an apartment in Goregaon, a northern suburb of Mumbai, and a shoe shop in nearby Andheri. At one point, Subash employed eight assistants and earned 50,000 to 100,000 rupees ($1,100 to $2,200) a month. They rode around town on a motorbike, and when they went to the market, they never questioned how much food they bought.
“We have gone from a time when we had a lot of money to nothing,” said Vimal, sitting on the floor of her home.
Subash is one of about 320,000 disabled people living with HIV in India, according to a 2007 report by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). There is a higher prevalence of disabled people living with HIV than in the general population because of factors related to poverty, it states. Poverty increases vulnerability to HIV, and people with disabilities are over-represented among the poorest of the poor.
However, despite this correlation, those with disabilities who are living with HIV have not been targeted by assistance programs in India, according to Heather Ferreira, a program officer for the HIV/AIDS program at World Vision India.
Less than 2 percent of those with disabilities living with HIV receive support from HIV programs, the DFID report states.
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