Is there any woman who wants her long journey of life end up as a widow? Does a woman want to lose her husband at the prime of her married life? Ask any woman and the answers will be definitely a big 'No'. Woman, an embodiment of kindness and sacrifice will prefer to die before they see the funerals of their husbands. In every religious book and more so in the Hindu scripture, it is believed that the gates of heaven always keep open for those wives who have got the chance to die before the death of their husbands. In Hindu society widow is still taken as a curse, a burden in the family as well as in the society.

But, the harsher reality of being a widow in our society now is that if the dead husband happens to be a HIV positive man and died of AIDS then the widow surely experiences dual stigmatization - first as a widow and second a widow of a HIV positive man. If the dreaded disease is transmitted from the husband to the wife... If the woman bears a child in her womb is also diagnosed as a HIV positive ... (a likelihood, given the increase in mother to child transmission). These are many 'if's which ultimately force our society to look at these HIV positive man, woman and children differently because there is no cure for this AIDS and is still one of greatest challenge to medical science of our time.

India is ranked at number two in the list of the countries which are affected by AIDS and Manipur includes in the list of six States of India worst affected by HIV/AIDS. The other five States are Nagaland, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The first case of HIV/AIDS in Manipur was detected in September 1986. At that time people did not pay much concern about this disease and it was believed that AIDS was also another name of a disease which could be cured by taking a simple dose of antibiotics and vitamins. Even a particular newspaper had carried appeals of the cloth merchants of Imphal whose markets had been usurped by second hand cloth dealers that wearing second hand cloths might contact AIDS.

But in the span of about 18 years that is from September 1986 to October 2004, the number of HIV positive man and woman were 18,800 of which 3300 cases were confirmed of having AIDS. Many had died of this disease, many are on the brink of death and there may be many deaths which are beyond the reach of statisticians maintaining the official records.

Everyone knows the mode and route of transmission of this disease. Medias are always on the alert to aware the public how to prevent AIDS. But the more cause of concern now is that while the rate of transmission of HIV/AIDS among the Intravenous Drug Users (IDUs) have been reduced, the rate of mother to child transmission is on the increase. According to official records of the Manipur AIDS Control Society (MACS) the rate of HIV positive among the IDUs decreased from 76 percent in 1997 to 21 percent in 2004 while the rate of mother to child transmission (pregnant women having HIV positive) rose from 0.8 percent in 1994 to 1.66% in 2004. The vulnerability of women is evident in this high rate of transmission from mother to child.

This is a serious cause of concern because transmission of HIV/AIDS from mother to child can be taken as the coming out of the AIDS among the general population, among the innocent new born babes who has inherited it from their parents as a gift for no fault of theirs.

A study conducted by UNICEF in 2003 indicates that most HIV positive women became aware of their states only after their husbands are diagnosed to be HIV positive or even as late as the death of their husbands. Again the level of education in women is linked to the information they access about HIV/AIDS. A study analyzing HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention amongst women in India from the Second National Family Health Survey found that only 18 percent of non literate had heard of HIV while 54 percent of women with a primary level of education had heard of it. In our State the rate of female literacy varies from urban to rural and even to the hill districts and thereby the rate of awareness of the disease varies as compared to the urban areas.

The impact of HIV is also more severely felt by the women in the poor family. In these families, it is mostly the women who provide more support to the family and often are forced into situations where they have no other ways but to work as commercial sex workers. This has increased the risk of infection among women who are earlier considered as low risk group.

The risk of infection among women means the risk of infection to generations to come. This is where the Project Orchid aims at, a project launched to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Manipur and Nagaland.

The Project Orchid is a joint venture taken up by Australian International Health Institute (AIHI) and Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) supported by AVAHAN, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, India AIDs Initiative.

AVAHAN has accorded the cost of the project a grant of 5 million US dollars and first phase of the project will be launched in Chandel, Ukhrul and Bishnupur districts of Manipur. This project targets more on preventive intervention than the treatment of the disease and targets to prevent the transmission of the disease among the 9000 intravenous drug users in these districts. When the project is in its full steam it will help in checking the spread of the disease among the IDUs and CAWs.

This is a God-sent project for Manipur. Let us hope for the best but for now it is better to keep our fingers crossed.