Chhetri, 42, who was into drugs since the age of 23, sleeps either in temples or on the roads after his mother and brothers forced him out of the house fearing that other members may get infected. "I tried very hard to convince that it doesn´t get transmitted, but to no avail. Already a patient, I have become very feeble due to lack of proper care," Chhetri rued.[break]
The family had also thrown his three sons and wife out of the house along with him. "My wife lives at her parental home along with the kids. But I have not been able to lead a happy life away from them," he said. "AIDS patients are facing hard time due to lack of adequate knowledge about the disease even among the educated and affluent."
Similarly KB Singh of Bardiya has been living out of his house for two years unable to bear the taunts of the family and society. Singh, who said that he may have got the infection after taking injected drugs on insistence of friends in Simla, India, where he had gone to work. He now lives in Nepalgunj away from his three children and wife.
"I want to return home but cannot muster up courage when I think of the misbehavior of the villagers," Singh said.
Singh is going through financial hardship in Nepalgunj and lamented that the villagers jumped to conclusions without trying to know how he got actually infected. He said that one of his kids was born after he contracted HIV, but he has not been able get his wife and the kid tested for HIV for lack of money.
"I went to different health institutions in Nepal and India to confirm my infection. I had to sell three bighas of land in the process," he explained.
Many HIV positive people are put through additional hardships due to social stigmatization. "Everybody from the well-acquainted to those who don´t know much about the disease, look down upon the AIDS patients," complained Mathura Devi Kunwar, an HIV positive.
Government agencies estimate that many infected persons in the hills of Mid West and Far West (as many as 4,000), who have been to India, one time or other, for work, have been hiding the disease to avoid social stigma.
Coordinator of the Banke District AIDS Coordination Committee said 1,506 persons have tested HIV positive at the health centers in Nepalgunj since 1995, 69 of whom have already died.
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