Although India's generic drug industry has brought the local price of HIV/AIDS medications down to 1,300 rupees ($29.85 US) a month, many of the approximately 5 million HIV/AIDS patients in the country cannot afford treatment. Unable to come up with an amount equivalent to less than the cost of one cup of coffee every two days in London or New York, many Indians with HIV/AIDS simply wait to die.

Indians tend to shy away from government hospitals, where reporting new infections is compulsory. Compulsory reporting leaves HIV/AIDS patients prey to blackmail, with many clinics faking results or demanding money not to mention positive results. One HIV-positive resident of a small village, who asked for anonymity, said, "The disease is there, but the problem is when someone knows, then their behavior is quite bad. What have we done? Don't we deserve a normal life as well?"

While Indian officials say the government's awareness campaign has caused the number of new infections to drop, AIDS activists say the numbers are actually increasing rapidly.

In the Khalpara red-light district of Siliguri, a trading town, most sex workers' customers refuse to wear condoms. Although workers from the local group Durbar hand out 10,000 free condoms a month and sell another 11,000 at subsidized prices, most prostitutes boost their income by selling the free ones at the local market.

Dr. D. Rudra, who has been working with HIV/AIDS patients in the area for more than a decade, said unprotected sex is still the most common form of HIV transmission. "If this continues," Rudra said, "then in one decade India's economy will be nowhere. The hospitals will be full of AIDS patients."

"Poverty is rampant," Rudra said. "Out of 100 patients, maybe 10 can afford medicine."

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