HIV-positive student thrown out of Bengal school

Oct 12, 2007, 15:32 GMT

Kolkata, Oct 12 (IANS) A primary school student in West Bengal was thrown out of his school after being allegedly humiliated by his teachers because he was HIV positive, his mother said.

The 11-year-old-boy, a resident of Baruipur, on the eastern fringes of the city, was admitted to the Bhanta Bairampur Prathamik Vidyalaya in the same locality only 20 days ago.

'During admission I had told the school authorities about my son's ailment,' said the boy's mother, who did not want to be named.

She alleged that initially the school authorities were reluctant to admit the boy. But under pressure from Bengal Network of Positive People (BNP+), of which the boy is a member, and some local Left leaders, the school authorities admitted the boy in Class I.

But the boy was made to sit on a separate bench and his classmates were told to shun him.

'Last Saturday, the school officials told me to take my son away as he could infect other students in the class,' the boy's mother said.

'This is against the law of the land. A school cannot throw a student out on the grounds of being HIV infected. We have taken up the matter with the school authorities as well as the local administration. We plan to take up the matter with the West Bengal Secondary Education Board,' BNP+ president Tarit Chakraborty told IANS.

'It is a glaring, illegal case of discrimination. If we receive any formal complaint from BNP+, we will probe the matter,' said D.N. Goswami, programme officer of the West Bengal State AIDS Prevention and Control Society.

The boy had been receiving regular blood transfusions since the age of nine. About 18 months ago, he was diagnosed as being infected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Doctors think he may have contracted the infection during transfusion.

'He was running high fever, had a whooping cough and became emaciated. We took him to the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, where it was found he was infected with HIV,' his mother said.

An officer of the Paediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic, Apex Referral Centre of Medical College Hospital, where the boy is undergoing treatment, said he was fit enough to lead a normal life.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service