Porn viewing leads to rise in HIV cases

Nellore: Even though technology bestows an excellent opportunity for upgrading the levels of knowledge and skills, the worst part is it has been awfully impacting lives of people with misery and tragedies. A recent study conducted by a group of researchers from Karnataka astonishingly revealed that majority HIV+ cases (around 80%) were porn lovers on mobile which made their lives gloomy when they had been inflicted with the deadly virus due to frequent visits to prostitutes.

The name, HIV, was popular and terrific during 90s when it had travelled from western countries to India and now the same situation prevailed in majority districts as there was no focus on the disease. The state government has been providing treatment, ART medicines and rehabilitation programmes but majority people are reckless to the warnings of AIDS.

Once upon a time, enjoying the erotic literature was occasional and it was costly and socially forbidden too. Now, thanks to the excellent technology, that made many things ‘live’ which has been creating social hazards with the advent of smart phones at cheaper cost. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), organised studies some time ago on prevalence of HIV cases in South India on pornography and its association with HIV-related sexual behaviour among male migrant workers in southern peninsula.

Telugu states are among top in the list of inflicted cases across the country, Nellore luckily bagged seventh position in Andhra Pradesh.
Official data of Medical and Health department says there were 1,766 cases in 2014-15, 1,605 cases in 2015-16, 1,650 cases in 2016-17 and around 1,300 confirmed cases till now in the district.

But, this is limited data available to the official mechanism where they confine information collection to the government-run medical facilities. Unofficial sources say there would be more than 20,000 cases in the entire district. Studies of NCBI has revealed 40 per cent of the migrants had viewed pornographic videos in one month just prior to the survey. Migrants were aged between 25 and 29 years, literate, unmarried and away from native village for more than five years were more likely to view pornography than their counterparts.

The findings discovered exposure to pornography and its linkage with high HIV risk behaviour suggest that the HIV prevention programmes for migrants need to be more innovative to communicate on the negative-effects of viewing pornography, according to the report.

After 7-8 years of interval, the same has been confirmed during the brief study which raised questions on honesty of awareness activities of the official mechanism. The enthusiastic scholars from Karnataka, who were collecting data for a paper, informed that they had interacted with some affected persons in Nellore. According to an adult website, 30 per cent of all data transferred online is meant for adults.

In a 2015 info-graphic, the website detailed that 70 per cent of men consume the content compared to 30 per cent of women. And the number of people consuming porn is rapidly increasing every week, according to the website. “According to data, out of 2.5 crore websites 12 per cent are having content for adults and 35 per cent of total downloads are obscene content.

When there is no restriction on such content this kind of social maladies continue to haunt the society. The governments have to open their eyes for resolving the issues,” said Dr VRK Reddy, a retired medical officer. A senior official from the Medical and Health department said awareness activities were being concentrated in rural pockets on ill-effects of HIV and its worst impact on humans.

By P V Prasad