HIV/AIDS Pioneer on the Subcontinent

Dr. Jaya Lakshmi Shreedhar

Born in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, Dr. Jaya Lakshmi Shreedhar is a health communications expert who specializes in HIV/AIDS in India and the rest of Asia. A medical doctor by training, Shreedhar has written and taught extensively on the AIDS crisis and has consulted for United Nations agencies and the Indian government. Shreedhar has recently conducted research for Internews on AIDS reporting in the Mekong Delta and in India, where Internews aims to improve the quality and quantity of media coverage of HIV/AIDS. Internews HIV/AIDS Advisor Liz Gold interviewed Shreedhar by email.

How did you first become aware of HIV in your country and get involved in this work?

In 1986, while I was at medical school, a physician friend mentioned that researchers had detected a virus called HTLV-III among ten prostitutes at a detention home. The disease had hitherto been detected only in foreign countries and could not be cured.

Soon I found myself getting directly involved. A friend at the BBC sought my help to carry out a series of interviews with a cross-section of women professionals in Tamil Nadu. Among those we met was a sex worker who was HIV-positive who told us that no one knew about her illness and it did not affect her work. In fact, she did not really think she was ill at all, like the doctors told her.

It became clear that the media needed to get involved in a big way to spread awareness about HIV.

Have you seen much change in local media response to the growing epidemic in India over the past decade?

There has been a slight qualitative change in the English-language media. But the coverage continues to dwell on disempowering images of death, despair, stigma, abandonment, marginalized groups and mismanagement.

Despite reporting on the issue for over a decade, journalists continue to be passive recipients of information from “AIDS experts,” and analytical coverage is rare.

Have the media influenced the policy agenda vis à vis AIDS?

Health reporting is yet to come of age in the Indian media. Many publications depend on foreign media for medical news. As a result, local research and how it informs policy, if indeed it does, is hardly reported.

In the face of all this doom and gloom, how do you keep going?

I wouldn’t say it’s all doom and gloom. There is simply too much opportunity to learn, to grow as a human being and contribute whatever one can.

One of the most nourishing things for a journalist is to have readers respond spontaneously. Work in the media becomes a two-way learning process — that has always been a source of inspiration.

It is doubly encouraging when NGOs join in and best of all when people living with HIV invite you into their circle of trust— that is what inspires me the most.