Prostitutes from Madras were found seropositive for HIV infection in 1986, and are the 1st such cases identified in India. A national serosurveillance program and reference centers were subsequently created, finding a total 44 known AIDS cases through March 31, 1990. While this number of cases may seem small in the general context of India's large population size, increasing levels of seropositivity are being detected, and give cause for concern. Where recent studies of seropositivity in IV-drug users have created serious concern, serosurveillance has nonetheless been largely limited to prostitutes, STD patients, pregnant women, blood donors, and contacts of seropositive individuals. Ignorance and stigmatization of seropositive individuals and persons with AIDS persist both in the general public and the medical community. Doctors, nurses, and staff therefore are in special need of proper orientation to treat and counsel such clients. Indian health authorities are overwhelmingly challenged by how to care for AIDS cases, and do not know what to do with those who are seropositive. Hospitals and facilities for supportive treatment will be identified. Seropositive individuals especially need psychological support and counseling. Guidelines for counseling are therefore greatly needed. Those identified as seropositive must also be ensured that their status will remain confidential. Introductory comments are made regarding the seriousness of AIDS as a global pandemic, its initial identification and description, and the various patterns of epidemic spread observed throughout the world.

Education concerning prevailing health problems and the method of preventing and controlling them was considered to be one of the first eight essential activities in primary health care. Hence this study was attempted to assess the impact of health education on the knowledge, attitude and practices of school children aged 10-14 years in two secondary schools situated in Burdwan District of West Bengal. For this purpose health education was imparted by a team consisting of Medical Officer and Paramedical staff. Education was given on personnel hygiene. The entire education programme was arranged in such a way that the course could be completed in six months time. The knowledge, attitude and practice status of the students was assessed before imparting training, twice during the training period at an interval of three months and finally after 9 months from the start of training. The evaluation was done with the help of scoring. The results indicated that the health knowledge of the student significantly improved after education. Attitude of the students towards personal hygiene also improved significantly after education. The practice of personal hygiene improved significantly as well. The present study also revealed that the improvement in health practice was not commensurating with the improvement of knowledge and attitude after education.

Only 8 percent of the prostitutes were literate. Income per night varied from Rs 10 to Rs 30 for 72% of the prostitutes. Whereas only one third of the married women were happy with the profession, 95.92% of Devdasis liked the profession. Illiteracy, domestic unhappiness, deception, destitution, poor socio-ecomic status of parents, and religious custom of Devdasi were the important contributory factors for landing innocent girls or socially handicapped women into prostitution.

A total of 1232 female subjects including 100 prostitutes from Calcutta and adjoining areas in the age group of 21-70 years were screened for cervical pathology according to the method of Papanicolaou. Of 1232 examined, 815 were found to have smears with normal cellular cytology (66.15%). The others were grouped into dysplasia (18.4%) and inflammatory (15.4%) according to the cytomorphological characteristics of the exfoliated cells. The findings though revealed more cases of cervical dysplasia in women with early marriage, early childbirth, high parity and multiple sexual partners, it failed to support the smegma theory of cervical carcinoma. This study also showed a number of inflammatory cervical smears in women coming from low socio-economic group.